Harry Potter and the Realm of Possibilities
by Raven Whitewolf
Summary: After the events of his 4th year at Hogwarts Harry Potter receives 7 books about his life and a note telling him he will have a second chance to have a normal family. As harry and some others are transported to the Realm of Possibilities to read the books new romances start to flare, stories are shared, secrets from the past revealed ,and mistakes are mended.
1. The Realm of Destiny

Harry Potter and the Realm of Possibilities: Chapter 1

AU. Mostly Canon pairings. After the events of his 4th year at Hogwarts Harry Potter receives 7 books about his life and a note telling him he will have a second chance to have a normal family. As harry and some others are transported to the Realm of Possibilities to read the books new romances start to flare, stories are shared, secrets from the past revealed ,and mistakes are mended.

Forgive me for any errors because I haven't written a story in years and this is my first time posting on

**_Disclaimer:_** I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling however she is more than welcome to share some of the royalties with me. (LOL) **So let the tale begin…**

_HP&TROP_

**_Prologue: The Realm of Destiny_**

The room was unoccupied with the exception of a tall black cloaked figure sitting on a huge throne-like chair on a raised platform. With no warning there was a loud knock on the door to which he opened the with the wave of his hand. Hastening into the room walked a small group of six people three men with messy black hair and hazel eyes who went by the names of Merdyn Emerys, Ignotus Peverell and Godric Gryffindor and three redheaded, green eyed women called Morgana LeFay,Lilium Peverell and Ruby Gryffindor, all dressed in red and gold robes. One of them hurriedly spoke for the group "Sorry for interrupting My Lord but we crave your assistance upon a matter of urgency to our family." The shrouded figure nodded and spoke with a deep thunderous voice "What assistance do you require Sir Emerys?" The addressed man explained. My descendants and I were just observing the elapsing of mortal time in the viewing chamber when we discovered that my Brother Cadmus's heir has inflicted horrible atrocities to Merdyn's , Sir Godric's, and I's last living heir and used one of the sacred gifts in a foul ritual contrary to its intention. The hooded man sprang to his feet shouting.**_ You mean to tell me that your brother's despicable spawn used a soul vessel._** No your highness spoke Merdyn for the first time he has created seven of the abominations and befouled a different foretelling of destiny thus threatening our noble bloodline. As you know when our bloodline dies out all magic in the world will cease to exist creating chaos among the mortals. If you could have seen his face you would have seen the hooded man's face go pale as he flopped back into his chair. How can I fix this without breaking me the laws of free will and direct interference? The three men looked at their wives and nodded. Ruby the designated talker for the women spoke up with a melodious voice. Your Majesty if I may Morgana, Lilium, and I have devised a way to fulfill the prophesy and reward our heir without breaking the laws of free will and direct interference. We simply transport our descendant Harry Potter and those who can assist him in his destiny to the Realm of Possibilities where they will read 7 books about Harry Potter's life written by a muggle-born author by the name of JK Rowling.

The hooded man nodded pleased with the plan and stood up telling them. Go and compile a list of people for transport at once. The six Guardians of life and death bowed to their leader and went to work on their list.

William Potter (Harrys Grandfather)

Elizabeth Potter (Harry's Grandmother)

James Potter

Lily Evans

Petunia Dursley

Dudley Dursley

Frank Longbottom

Alice Parker (Longbottom)

Neville Longbottom

Sirius Black

Regulus Arcturus Black

Ted Tonks

Andromeda (Black) Tonks

Nymphadora Tonks

Arthur Weasley

Molly Weasley

Bill Weasley

Charlie Weasley

Percy Weasley

Fred Weasley

George Weasley

Ron Weasley

Ginny Weasley

Hermione Granger

Remus Lupin

Gideon Prewett

Fabian Prewett

Albus Dumbledore

Aberforth Dumbledore

Luna Lovegood

Marlene McKinnon

Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody

Rubeus Hagrid

Minerva McGonagall

Severus Snape

Kingsley Shacklebolt

Dobby the House Elf

In the end between the six of them they compiled a fairly decent list of allies for harry.


	2. character guide timeline

Harry Potter and the Realm of Possibilities: Chapter 1

AU. Mostly Canon pairings. After the events of his 4th year at Hogwarts Harry Potter receives 7 books about his life and a note telling him he will have a second chance to have a normal family. As harry and some others are transported to the Realm of Possibilities to read the books new romances start to flare, stories are shared, secrets from the past revealed ,and mistakes are mended.

This is just a character guide to let you know the timeline each if the readers are from.

_HP&TROP_

William Potter –1977

Elizabeth Potter –1977

James Potter- 1978

Lily Evans-1978

Petunia Dursley- 1995

Dudley Dursley- 1995

Frank Longbottom- 1978

Alice Parker (Longbottom) - 1978

Neville Longbottom- 1995

Sirius Black- 1995

Regulus Arcturus Black- 1978

Ted Tonks- 1995

Andromeda (Black) Tonks- 1995

Nymphadora Tonks- 1995

Arthur Weasley- 1995

Molly Weasley- 1995

Bill Weasley- 1995

Charlie Weasley- 1995

Percy Weasley- 1995

Fred Weasley- 1995

George Weasley- 1995

Ron Weasley- 1995

Ginny Weasley- 1995

Hermione Granger- 1995

Remus Lupin- 1995

Gideon Prewett- 1978

Fabian Prewett- 1978

Albus Dumbledore- 1995

Aberforth Dumbledore- 1995

Luna Lovegood- 1995

Marlene McKinnon - 1978

Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody - 1995

Rubeus Hagrid- 1995

Minerva McGonagall - 1995

Severus Snape - 1995

Kingsley Shacklebolt - 1995

Dobby the House Elf- 1995

The Remus Lupin from is from 1995 to make possible a more feasible pairing with Nymphadora Tonks.

William Potter and Elizabeth Potter are from 1977 because they died during the summer of 1978 motivating James to mature a little.

James Potter and Lily Evans are dating and so is Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon.


	3. Switching Time

Harry Potter and the Realm of Possibilities:

AU. Mostly Canon pairings. After the events of his 4th year at Hogwarts Harry Potter receives 7 books about his life and a note telling him he will have a second chance to have a normal family. As harry and some others are transported to the Realm of Possibilities to read the books new romances start to flare, stories are shared, secrets from the past revealed ,and mistakes are mended. posting on 

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling

_HP&TROP_

**Chapter 1: Switching Time**

August 1Number four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

The sweltering heat wave that saturated the air of Little Whinging suppressed most of the residents desire to be outside. Harry Potter resident wizard-in-training of number four Privet Drive had just finished his long list of chores given to him by his enormous walrus-like uncle Vernon Dursley.

Not wanting to cross paths with his cousin Dudley who was also fat and stupid and was out terrorizing the neighborhood with his gang. Harry decided to just sit in his room and think about the past year. The disturbance at the World Quidditch Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, and finally the murder of Cedric Diggory and resurrection of Voldemort. It was entirely my fault Harry thought as he sat staring out the window in his room the quiet occasionally being disturbed by soft hoots of his sleeping snowy owl companion Hedwig. Harry forced himself to think about more pleasant things. Harry had come to the conclusion that his obsession with Cho Chang was a meaningless endeavor. He had come to realize that they really had nothing in common besides Quidditch and the death of her boyfriend Cedric. Lately Harry's thoughts have gone towards the forbidden. Ginny Weasley his best mate Ron's little sister. She was beautiful, smart, funny, and after the Triwizard Tournament he discovered that she was really easy to talk to. But she got over her crush on him right? Didn't she say she was dating Michael Corner now? Harry thought jealously. Just then out of the corner of his eye Harry saw a flash red light and laying on his desk was a piece of gold colored parchment. Harry cautiously picked up the parchment and read.

**Greetings to the Heir of Blood and Magic:**

**We are writing this because a great injustice has occurred on your behalf. There has been two ****prophecies foretold of you the first is this**

**The Heir of Blood and Magic shall vanquish his foes and unite the Hallowed Gifts. With true family to guide and instruct him. For if he shall fail Chaos reigns and all Life and Magic shall be undone.**

**And the second states as thus.**

**"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives." **(Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

**To fulfill the second prophesy you must acquire your true family. In order to do that we invite you to the Realm of Possibilities along with those we have chosen to assist you to read seven books about your past present and future.**

**The trace on your location has been temporarily suspended while you are reading this Ultimately the choice is yours if you choose to fulfill your destiny burn this parchment with your wand and you will be instantly transported. **

**Sincerely: The Guardians of life and death and your Forebears**

**Maxim Gaius, Merdyn Emerys, Ignotus Peverell and Godric Gryffindor, Morgana LeFay,**__**Lilium**** Peverell and Ruby Gryffindor**

Harry sat there shocked. Could this be true? Did he really have a chance at a proper family? What did the prophecies mean? Was he really related to Godric Gryffindor? That might explain why he was able to pull the sword out of the sorting hat in the chamber his second year. If only he was able to speak to Sirius, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, or even Professor Dumbledore but he was running out of time he needed to make his decision quickly. In a haste Harry picked up his wand that was sitting in his desk pointed it at the parchment and yelled incendio. In a flash of red light Harry Potter disappeared. _HP&TROP_

**Author's Note: Thank you to those who have viewed, followed and favorite this story.**

**In case you were wondering Maxim Gaius is the hooded man at the beginning of the story and a relation to the other Guardians of life and death. They are the 7 ancestors of Harry Potter.**

**This chapter takes place August 1 1995 the day before he and Dudley would have been attacked by Dementors sent by Dolores Umbridge.**


	4. Finding FamilyThe Boy Who Live

Harry Potter and the Realm of Possibilities:

AU. Mostly Canon pairings. After the events of his 4th year at Hogwarts Harry Potter receives 7 books about his life and a note telling him he will have a second chance to have a normal family. As harry and some others are transported to the Realm of Possibilities to read the books new romances start to flare, stories are shared, secrets from the past revealed ,and mistakes are mended. This is going to be a long chapter.

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling.

_HP&TROP_

**Chapter 2: Finding Family/The Boy Who Lived**

September 1 1978 Hogwarts Express

James William Potter and his girlfriend of approximately three hours Lily Marie Evans had just finished meeting with the prefects as Head Boy and Head Girl. Their friend Remus Lupin had just left the Heads compartment in search of their friends Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. The former is probably in some compartment snogging Marlene McKinnon while the latter is most likely bothering Madam Perkins the Sweet trolley lady. James and Lily were now alone in the Heads compartment spending some quality time together (aka snogging) when they were without warning consumed in a bright red light.

The Realm of Possibilities

upon their return home from St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries with the grave news that they both have magical cancer and less than a year to live William Thomas Potter and his wife of nearly 80 years Elizabeth Kathryn Potter had suddenly vanished in a brilliant flash if red light that startled their free house elf Dippsy. They found themselves in what appeared to be a large lounge with comfortable chairs and sofas most of which were occupied with startled and confused people most of which the elder couple didn't recognize along with a few that they have known for years such as Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore. However in the center of the room still preoccupied with a young red haired witch was their only son James. With a mischievous sparkle in his eyes William loudly cleared his throat and said Son don't you think you should let the lovely lady up for some air while winking at Lily. James for his part was startled to hear the voice of his father and mother who had died two months previously promptly collapsed in a conveniently place chair much to the pleasure of the room occupants. After James had been revived he looked around the room and saw the faces of 35 people and one house elf staring back at him some he recognized others he didn't.

Harry P.O.V

Harry Potter was stunned one minute he was in his bedroom at Privet Drive and the next he is in some unknown lounge surrounded by his friends and a bunch of strangers. Harry looked around in confusion where am I? How did I get here? Is this some trap set by Voldemort? They are right mate you do look a lot like your dad Ron said in shock. Harry smiled at him thru the confusion suddenly glad that he wasn't alone and was surrounded by the Weasleys, Hermione ,Lupin, and Sirius. Then he suddenly remembered the note from the Guardians. Suddenly in a flash of red smoke seven hooded figures appeared six in red cloaks and one in black. The black cloaked figure spoke in a loud booming voice. My name is Maxim Gaius however I also sometimes go by Death. This caused the room to stir in a panic so Maxim continued. I have not come to take you on to the Next Great Adventure but to save some of you from going on that Adventure before your time. Many of them relaxed (but William and Elizabeth Potter knew and had accepted the possibility that they were already dead but cherished the chance to see their son one last time and meet their Grandson.) Before I get started let me notify you that your wands will not work in this Realm. You are gathered here in a place outside time to read about the life of an extraordinary young man by the name of Harry Potter. This caused said young man to blush bright red. Who would want to read about that freak shouted Dudley Dursley followed by glares from everyone in the room except said boy's mother Petunia who had gone pale upon seeing her sister who she still secretly loved and wanted to forgive her. We will return when you finish this book to deliver the second one. So without further delay I and my companions shall leave you to make your own introductions to each other and begin reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

After everyone had introduced themselves Albus Dumbledore stood up and addressed the crowd. Now that we have that out of the way I would like to read first so shall we begin with everyone's nods of agreement Albus Read. **The Boy Who Lived**

Ten Galleons this chapter is about Harry Fred Weasley shouted to the room as a whole. Make it Twenty replied Sirius who then high fived James who was still in shock that this was his almost brother. Almost everyone started to snigger with the exception of Mrs. Weasley, Petunia Dursley and Severus Snape.

**Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.**

What's wrong with being normal asked Petunia shocked at being mentioned in the first sentence of the book.

Because being normal is no fun. Replied Fred and George.

**They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.**

Dad says it's all just freakish nonsense and Harry needs to be put in his place replied Dudley. Who was immediately on the receiving end of a lot of glares including to his surprise his mother. Petunia promptly burst into tears and was startled when she felt two sets of hands in her shoulders. She looked up into two pairs of identical green eyes. Forgive me she requests. Lily and Harry Potter simply nodded and Petunia noticeably relaxed.

**Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.**

What are drills?" was a common reply among the pure bloods and those who didn't take muggle studies. As soon as the question was spoken Muggle dictionaries fell from the ceiling hitting James, Sirius , Snape, William, Fred, George, Regulus Black, Frank Longbottom , Neville Longbottom, and for some reason Dudley hard on top of the head. Anyone else that needed one simply caught one that was gently floating in the air in front of them.

**He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on neighbors.**

I do not spy on the neighbors Petunia roared in indignation.

Yes you do Tuney Lily exclaimed from her seat between Harry and James already used to the presents of her son even though she was just 17 and only started dating James a little over four hours ago. You have ever since you caught Mr. Thompson sun bathing starkers. Petunia promptly turned red and did a perfect impression of a fish much to everyone's amusement

**The Dursley's had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.**

Dudley started grinning at this statement until George loudly asked small compared to what?

Sirius wittily replied " to the Eifel Tower in Paris". This caused the room to burst into laughter and Dudley to go and sulk in the corner.

That is it Duders you are going back on your diet no exceptions exclaimed Petunia causing Dudley to pout some more and the occupants if the room to laugh some more.

**The Dursley's had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.**

There is nothing wrong with Potters shouted William, Elizabeth, James, Harry, and a severely

Blushing Ginny. While Sirius started to growl at the book in Dumbledore's hand.

**Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband **

More growls from Sirius.

Lily whispered in James's ear that she knows one thing that he is good for. The whole room heard which once again caused the room to burst into laughter and Elizabeth and Mrs. Weasley to reprimand Lily that there are children present.

**were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street.**

We know how to dress like Muggles more than most people," said James.

William nodded in agreement.

**The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

A child like, _what, _exactly," Shouted James and Lily.

Harry couldn't help but cringe into the sofa prompting Lily to tone down her temper a little and pull him into a soft embrace.

**When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work,**

ZZZZZZZZ Sirius, William, James, Gideon Prewett, Fabian Prewett, and The Weasley Twins were pretending to sleep. However William and James were drooling on Elizabeth's and Lily's shoulders for which they swiftly gave the men disgusted stares.

.**And Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.**

Brat all the women in the room said while glaring at Dudley in his corner.

**None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window. At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.**

Maybe he's infected by nargles replied Luna casually which made everyone stare at her with blank expressions.

What they infect muggles too.

Ok moving on replied Albus.

**Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive. ** **It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen — then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, **_**looking **_**at the sign; cats couldn't read maps **_**or **_**signs.**

Minerva allowed a rare smirk to appear at that.

Minnie!" yelled Sirius, making people jump as he did.

don't call me Minnie Mr. Black said Minerva sternly. This caused Sirius to look at Regulus accusingly.

**Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt —these people were obviously collecting for something…yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills. **

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. **_**He **_**didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more.**

that man is horrible muttered Mrs. Weasley.

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying. **

"**The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard —" **

"—**yes, their son, Harry —"**

Is the greatest best mate anyone could ever ask for prompted Ron while Hermione, Fred, George, and Ginny all nodded in confirmation causing Harry to turn red with embarrassment while his parents and grandparents smiled in approval that he had such loyal friends.

**Mr. Dursley stopped dead.**

Really?

"It's a figure of speech, Ronald." said Hermione amused as everyone started laughing.

Hermione glared playfully at Ron which only made him grin. Hermione looked away hurriedly, not sure if she wanted to admit to herself that she liked his smile.

**Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it. He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind.**

**He put the receiver back down and stroked his moustache, thinking... No, he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name.**

Actually in the wizarding world it is stated William proudly.

**He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry.**

"Does he even know your name?" asked Hermione disapproving.

"Er – I'm not really sure." admitted Harry. He was called "boy all the time "…

Everyone started glaring at Petunia for her husband's stupidity.

**He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold.**

There never has been nor will there ever be a Harvey or Harold in the Potter line stated William determinedly.

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it anyway added Fred and George.

**There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her - if he'd had a sister like that...**

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you Lily dear replied Elizabeth.

Yep Jamsie you've got a lovely young lady here. Of course you get that from your old man. William exclaimed causing both James and Lily to turn red from the compliments.

Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Potter Lily quietly muttered.

**But all the same, those people in cloaks... He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door. "Sorry," he grunted,**

That's a first," said Harry which made everyone laugh.

Harry and Ginny made eye contact across the room. Man does Ginny have a beautiful laugh Harry thought then turned red with embarrassment when he realized that he had said that out loud. Fortunately the only ones who heard him were his parents and grandparents. William and James glanced at each other and smiled. Another victim of the Potter Curse.

**As the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!" And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle **

How Remus asked puzzled.

**and walked off. Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.**

What!?" yelled Fred and George as they pretended to faint. There were many eye rolls around the room.

**As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood -was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes. "Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly. The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look.**

Minnie!" yelled Sirius, James, and the twins earning themselves a glare from the Professor as they gave each other high-fives. Lupin and Harry and a few others shook their heads amused.

**Was this normal cat behavior?**

It is for a Minnie cat declared Sirius promptly getting a glare from Minerva and Mrs. Weasley.

**Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife. Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!").**

Our first word was boom replied Fred and George with evil grins on their faces.

James's First word was Quaffle William stated proudly.

Hey Harry do you play Quidditch? James asked eagerly.

Harry thought about how to answer that then with a grin replied That is for me to know and you to find out.

The room broke into laughter at the stunned look on James's face at being outsmarted by his future son.

**Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:**

**"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern. The newscaster allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?" **

**"Well, Ted, "said the weatherman.**

Hey! That's me said Ted Tonks proudly.

It is? asked Harry.

Yes I work in the muggle news stations for the Ministry. It's my job to make sure they don't report anything they shouldn't he said proudly causing his wife and daughter to smile at him with delight.

**"I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars!**

Dedalus Diggle? he never had much sense." murmured Minerva.

**Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early - it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight. "**

**Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters... Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"**

**As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.**

Lily was crying into James's shirt. Muttering started to break out and with the glares that were being directed toward a sullen faced Petunia. Harry was surprised she wasn't on fire yet.

**No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

**"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... Shooting stars... And there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today... "****So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley. **

**"Well, I just thought... Maybe... It was something to do with... You know... Her crowd."**

"Her crowd?!" yelled many people angrily. Still glaring at a whimpering Petunia Dursley.

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare.**

**Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son -he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"**

**"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly. **

"**What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"**

**"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me. "**

"It's a bloody hell of a lot better than Dudley." sniffed Ginny angrily then realized what she said and blushed.

Language, Ginny scolded Mrs. Weasley.

The Potters, Lily ,Remus ,and Sirius were exchanging knowing looks. So it isn't just a one sided crush thought William.

**"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly.** **"Yes, I quite agree."**

I don't replied Lily Looking at her future son lovingly. Wanting nothing more than her and James to watch him grow up and have children of his own (Hopefully with a certain red haired brown eyes Weasley).

Unknown to Lily her former best friend sat watching her deep in thought. There is a muggle saying that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Severus Snape has loved and lost now hopefully he has enough Slytherin cleverness to get her to talk to him again.

**He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there.**

**It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something. Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did... If it got out that they were related to a pair of - well, he didn't think he could bear it.**

I don't think I could bear bring related to an unimaginative Lard Ass of a muggle either grumbled James who was swiftly smacked in the back if his head by both Elizabeth and Lily. This caused Harry to smile. He liked being with his parents he hoped that reading the books will help keep them together as a family.

**The Dursley's got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind... He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on - he yawned and turned over - it couldn't affect them... How very wrong he was.**

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness.**

Minerva pierced Sirius with a glare before he could remark.

**It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all. A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground.**

**The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.**

**Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice.**

Cheers of DUMBLEDORE!" permeated the room with the exception of the muggles and the Sullen Severus Snape. The man in question smiled as his eyes twinkled more than usual.

**This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.**

Duh we just said that exclaimed Fred and George. Then they but stopped almost immediately with a look from their mother.

**Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome.**

Oh I realize I just don't care explained Albus

**He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. **

**He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."**

**He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop.**

Cool every one exclaimed except Dudley who was trying to look like he wasn't interested but obviously was.

Just a little invention of mine called a Deluminator." Albus replied simply.

**He clicked it again - the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement.**

**Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat.**

**He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it. "Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."**

"I _told_ you it was Minnie!" said Sirius proudly.

"No one disagreed with you, Sirius," said Harry, earning himself a playful glare from his God-father. And strangely an uncharacteristic smile from Professor McGonagall.

**He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.**

**"How did you know it was me?" she asked. **

**"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."**

Many people laughed and Thoughts of Cedric suddenly intruded into his head that he would never be able to laugh again instantly spoiled Harry's mood. Ginny noticing the abrupt change in Harry's attitude walked over to him sat on the cough next to him and absentmindedly held his hand. Lily gave her a small smile of thanks because even though she could sense that his mind is troubled.

**"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.**

**"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here. "**

**Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily. "Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right, " she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news. "She jerked her head back at the Dursley's dark living-room window."I heard it. Flocks of owls... Shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense. " "You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."**

"Eleven years?" asked Harry surprised. The adults nodded somberly.

**"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors. "**

**She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"**

"I wish," muttered Harry. Immediately supported by the wizards and witches in the room.

**"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"**

You still eat those professor asked Lily it was she who gave Albus Dumbledore his very first bag of lemon drops.

"Do you really think it was the appropriate moment for a Muggle candy, Professor?" asked Tonks highly amused.

**"A what?" A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of"**

**"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. **

Everyone looked at Tonks and laughed making her hair change into an intense pink.

**"As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"**

**"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort. "**

Many people flinched and Ron fell out of his chair. Harry rolled his eyes. common people It's just a name! Harry received nods of respect from his James, his grandparents and Mad eye.

**Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name. "**

More people cringed, which caused Harry to get angrier.

"IT'S JUST A BLOODY NAME STUPID GIT MADE UP!" shouted Harry finally. Everyone stared at him, but he looked stubbornly away as most were exchanging uneasy glances.

"**I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know-oh, all right, Voldemort was frightened of. "**

**"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."**

"Only because you're too noble to use them," muttered Charlie loudly.

"**Only because you're too - well - noble to use them,"**

The stable adults snorted while the teens and Sirius laughed as Charlie turned the famous Weasley red.

**"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs. "**

"Too much information, sir!" snickered Harry.

Dumbledore simply chuckled.

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"**

Everyone stopped laughing some eager to hear more while others with dread knowing what had happened on that ill-fated Halloween night.

**It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer. **

**"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead."**

NOOO shouted everyone from the past.

**Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped. "Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus... "**

"I don't know you cared about me so much," Even when you docked us off points you were still my favorite teacher." James said with a small smile.

Minerva blinked back the tears that suddenly glistened in her eyes before nodding and responding Mr. Potter and this goes for both James and Harry. I care about all of my lions just as deeply.

**Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know... I know... " he said heavily. **

**Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry."**

What? Lily screamed furiously. That trump up bastard tried to kill my baby. which caused harry to instantly turn red.

"There's got to be more to the story." said Lily wisely, while Harry silently concurred with her.

**Dumbledore nodded glumly. "It's - it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... All the people he's killed... He couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding... Of all the things to stop him... But how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"**

Yes how enquired James. The rest of the room's occupants concurred. How could a little baby possibly have survived the most unforgivable of the three unforgivable curses? There had to be more to the story than anyone had considered feasible. Magic however played by its own rules and it wasn't their place to question it.

**"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."****Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles.**

Everyone stared in awe at the typically reserved and unshakeable transfiguration professor.

**Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge.**

I used to have one of them William observed they are extremely rare timepieces.

**It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"**

**"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"**

**"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."**

NO screamed Lily. What about Sirius and Marlene or Frank and Alice?

Frank and Alice looked at each other in shock sure they were friends with James and Lily. How could they not be after spending almost seven years in the same dorm together, but would they really trust them with raising their only child? While Sirius casually glanced at the 17 year old version of the girl that he asked to marry him and lost the next day to the Death Eaters when she went home to tell her parents the good news and walked in on them being tortured. He wondered that if he hadn't have gone after that damned rat he and Marlene could have raised Harry as their own. They were his Godparents after all.

**"You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. **

What a brat grimaced Elizabeth I may have allowed him a few liberties but at least my Jamsie has limitations.

Doubtful thought Severus guardedly.

**Harry Potter come and live here!"**

OH HELL NO shouted James if he can't be with Lils and I he should be with someone we trust. Hell I'd even let Peter take him in before her and her fat f**k of a husband does pointing at a cowering Petunia completely missing the looks of disgust at the mention if the traitors name most of the room.

**"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."**

You can't explain everything in a letter. Elizabeth exclaimed. You yourself admitted that there are that even you don't know

**"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous – a legend - I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future **

No," repeated Harry with finality, everyone tried hiding their smiles.

"The paper work got lost somewhere." Reassured. Harry sighed with relief before nodding to Dumbledore to continue.

**- there will be books written about Harry **

Like the one we're reading stated Sirius matter of factly

**- every child in our world will know his name!"**

**"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"**

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes - yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?"**

"I still didn't agree I just thought it best not to argue." muttered Minerva.

**She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.**

**"Hagrid's bringing him."**

**"You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"**

"I would trust Hagrid with my life." said Harry automatically smiling warmly at his large friend.

"**I would trust Hagrid with my life, " said Dumbledore.**

"**I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place, " said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to - what was that?"**

**A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky - and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.**

"I never did get that back." muttered Sirius.

It's in the storage shed at the Hogs Head supplied Aberforth gruffly

.**If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild – long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins.**

**In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets. "Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"**

**"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir, " said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir. "**

**"No problems were there?"**

"**No, sir - house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin'around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol. "**

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning. "**

"Aww," cooed all the women in the room, making Harry's face start to redden as Ron laughed.

I bet you were a cute baby Ginny whispered in his ear. Making him blush and everyone else laugh at his embarrassment.

The male Weasley children except Percy looked at Harry and their sister and came to a decision. If anybody is good enough for their sister it has to be Harry.

**Is that where -?" whispered Professor McGonagall. **

**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever. "**

Harry grimaced at that remembering all of the pain that scar caused.

**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground.**

"Too much information!" said Bill and Charlie as Fred and George yelled "Wicked!"

**Well - give him here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with. "**

**Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house. "Could I - could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.**

Harry laughed abruptly at the insulted look on Sirius' face.

**Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"**

**"S-s-sorry, "sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead - an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles -"**

**"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found, " Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep,**

"You left him on a doorstep!?" yelled Hermione, Elizabeth, Lily, and Ginny outraged. "It was supposed to rain!"

On this reminder the muttering grew louder. Dumbledore supposed it was in his best interest to keep reading.

**Took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.**

**Well," said Dumbledore finally, "That's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations. "**

**"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir." Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.**

**"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall, "said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply. Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four. **

**"Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone. A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley... **

Everyone glared at the boy in question. Causing him to somehow despite his large size to slink further into the corner.

**He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!"**

Dumbledore cleared his throat noisily, apparently unmindful to the intensity of the glares now directed toward him.

"Who would like to read next?"

I will said William still Glaring at the man that he somehow still considers a friend even after putting his grandson with those vile people.

Dumbledore carefully tossed the book to William who was just about to start reading when a huge bell rang and a door opened and out came what appeared to be waiters setting up tables.

Ahh exclaimed Sirius, Ron, and William I was wondering when we were going to eat . We shall continue with chapter two after lunch.

**Authors Note:**

**This is the longest chapter that I am going to write for this story at 20 pages.**

**While most natural rules don't apply in the Realm of Possibilities the characters are still going to require food and sleep.**


	5. The Vanishing Glass

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling.

Sorry I have been a little busy with school and everyday life I however am not abandoning this story. I have plans to continue this story through all seven books plus an epilogue telling what happens to the characters afterward. Thank you.

_HP&TROP_

After a wonderful lunch they once again gathered in the lounge to continue reading about Harry Potter's life. William picked up the book from the coffee table turned to the correct page and started to read

**The Vanishing Glass**

Harry suddenly paled. Everyone is going to find out about his sleeping arrangements. Petunia and Dudley looked around nervous having come to the same conclusion.

"Accidental magic, right?" asked Sirius, looking intrigued. ".Yes" replied Harry.

William cleared his throat and started to read.

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into the living-room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen the fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed.**

**Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink ball wearing different-colored bobble hats.**

", Excellent descriptions Harry." Said James

**But Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby and now the photographs showed a large, blonde boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.**

The adults in the room all raised their eyebrows. "_Where's Harry?" asked Elizabeth._

**Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day.**

"I do not have a shrill voice" Petunia screeched shrilly in outrage. Then shrank back after coming to the realization that all of the wizards and witches in the room are about to learn how badly she had treated her nephew.

"**Up! Get Up! Now!"**

**Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again. **

"**Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled on his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it.**

"You remember that, Potter?" asked Minerva shocked.

Harry nodded.

**He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.**

"That's because it wasn't a dream, Harrykins," said the Weasley twins mysteriously as everyone tried not to laugh. **(Since there are two sets of twins in the room I will the Weasley's and the Prewetts I will write their surnames when the twins speak together.)**

**His aunt was back outside the door. **

"**Are you up yet?" she demanded. **

"**Nearly," said Harry. **

"**Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon."**

"You're cooking when you're only ten!" asked Mrs. Weasley and Sirius outraged.

Harry was shifting guiltily deeper into the arm chair, dreading everything in these books. Harry couldn't understand why everyone was so mad. It surely was normal to be expected to cook every day no matter how old you were.

"It's fine, really," said Harry reassuringly. Somehow, no one was assured. The just glared at Petunia who shrank further into the corner.

"**And don't you dare burn it," "I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday,"**

**Harry moaned. **

**"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.**

"**Nothing, nothing…" **

**Dudley's birthday-how could he have forgotten? **

**Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders,**

"How could you be use to spiders?" asked Ron perplexed.

Which caused Harry to smile at his best friends fear if spiders

"Son of a bitch!" yelled William, his cheeks flaming in rage.

This caused Elizabeth to smack him on the back of the head and admonish him "Language William there are children present."

**Because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them and that was where he slept.**

"HARRY JAMES POTTER, WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL US?" screeched Hermione.

"By the time I met you I wasn't in the cupboard anymore so it wasn't a big deal."

While this exchange was taking place Lily was yelling at her sister who was cowering in the corner. "You locked my baby in a cupboard for ten years. If the roles were reversed I would never treat your son like that."

Sirius and Lupin got up at the same time and both gave Harry a one-armed hug. "You should have told us," murmured Sirius.

Harry quickly shrugged them off, not looking for pity, and sat back down next to Ginny looking down at his shoes. He could still feel the stares on him. Ginny took hold of his hand and he suddenly felt a lot calmer.

**When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had got the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat. Unless it involved punching someone.**

Better not be Harry muttered James glaring at Dudley who gave a shriek and hid behind his mother.

Harry quickly grabbed Ginny's wrist to pull her back down into her seat and James, Sirius, and Lupin exchanged enraged and knowing looks.

**But he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast. Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard; But Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinner than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. **

"Didn't they ever buy you clothes?" asked Lily deathly calm.

"No they didn't, I only started buying my own clothes after third year" replied Harry.

**Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair.**

**And bright green eyes.**

James smiled and in a dreamy voice said "my beautiful Lily's lovely eyes." Snape quietly agreed in his head.

**He wore round glassed held together with a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.**

"I should punch _you _in the nose," muttered Sirius darkly causing Dudley to squeak and hide behind the sofa his mother was sitting on.

**The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead which was shaped like a lightning bolt.**

Ron gave Harry an incredulous look.

"I was eleven and I didn't know how I got it," Harry defended.

**He had had it as long as he could remember and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had got it. **

**"In the car crash when your parents died" she had said.**

""A car crash…" Sirius trailed off, glowering at the book.

"WHAT?!" shouted James "I am an excellent driver I would never be in a car crash"

**"And don't ask questions."**

**Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.**

"No wonder he never asks question in class", thought Minerva.

"How the bloody hell is he supposed to learn anything if he can't ask questions." Shouted Lupin heatedly.

**Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.**

**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**

"Not going to work!" said Sirius and both sets of twins in a sing-song voice as they tried to lighten up the mood.

William gave Harry a sympathetic smile and said "sorry for the messy hair."

**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way - all over the place. Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. **

**Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel - Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

"Hey" shouted Dudley who found a brief moment of bravery only to sit back down next to his mother amid glares from the rest of the room.

**Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.**

**"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

"Brat," muttered Ginny and Hermione.

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, its here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."**

**"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right"**

**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty... thirty..."**

"Stupid boy can't even count," said Mad-Eye gruffly as everyone jumped because most seemed to have forgotten he was there.

**"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**

**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

**Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair. **

"That is no way to raise a child!" snorted Elizabeth.

**At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.**

**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him."**

"His name is Harry," muttered Tonks. Her hair turning fiery red.

**She jerked her head in Harry's direction, Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.**

William got a suspicious look on his face and asked Albus. She doesn't happen to be related to Jasper Figg isn't she?"

Albus thought for a few minutes then replied "I believe she is his youngest daughter."

This caused Harry wonder if she was planted there specifically to watch over him and why she didn't tell him anything after he learnt the truth.

**She jerked her head in Harry's direction, Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.**

Sirius groaned in horror as he muttered "Damn cats." causing Harry to grin and Minerva to glare at him.

**"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. **

**Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.**

"Cats are pure evil," said Sirius a

"Are you inferring something, Mr. Black?" asked Minerva as she gave him a piercing look.

Sirius swallowed as everyone else started turning red as they tried to hold in their laughter.

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested. **

Ron and Hermione started laughing uncontrollably and Harry started looking sheepish.

"Third year," said Harry before anyone could ask.

**"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."**

"The feeling is quite mutual" muttered Harry

**The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

Fred and George exchanged hopeful looks, but Mrs. Weasley caught them.

" Definitely not!" she shouted much to Dudley's relief.

Fred and George started muttering under their breaths about how to get away with turning Dudley a slug.

Ron paled slightly as he remembered everything that happened in his second year.

**"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"**

**"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

**"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).**

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

**"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.**

"He won't blow up the house!" shouted Ginny loudly.

**"I won't blow up the house," said Harry,**

Ginny blushed and buried her head in Harrys shoulder.

**But they weren't listening.**

**"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave him in the car..." "That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone..."**

**Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - it had been years since he'd really cried - but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

"For Merlin's sake what a brat," muttered Mrs. Weasley.

**"Dinky Duddydums,"**

Everyone laughed causing Dudley to blush in embarrassment.

"**Don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

**"I... don't... want... him... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms. Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**

"Of course the brat wouldn't cry in front of his mates" muttered James.

**Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.**

**"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy - any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

"Harry," asked Hermione with an undercurrent of anger. "What was the longest duration of time you've spent in the cupboard?"

"About Two months," muttered Harry dully, ignoring the traces of horror on everyone's faces.

"Two months," echoed Hermione as she glared at Harry.

Harry put a nervous hand through his hair as he looked away from everyone.

**"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly..." But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.**

"Still don't," muttered Harry, missing his friend's sad looks.

**The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.**

**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar."**

**Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.**

"The Potter hair!" cheered William, James, Sirius and Lupin. Harry looked at them in amusement. He's never seen Lupin this care free looking years younger.

**He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly. Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls).**

All of the women in the room shivered and Fred and George pretended to faint.

**The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.**

"As he shouldn't have been" shouted Mrs. Weasley.

**On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens.**

"How in the Bloody name of Merlin did you manage that?" asked Bill and Charlie in awe.

Harry just shrugged.

**Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors.**

"That's some impressive accidental magic, Potter." said Minerva shocked as did the rest of the adults.

Harry felt himself go red as he saw the impressed looks around him.

**Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.**

Ron and Hermione snorted.

**But today, nothing was going to go wrong.**

"Yeah right" snorted Ron.

"You jinxed it, Harry!" said Hermione with lips pursed in amusement.

**It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room. While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. **

**This morning, it was motorcycles.**

**"... Roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.**

**"I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."**

"Oh Harry you don't tell that to someone with no brain" replied Sirius.

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" **

"Really a beet with a mustache?" asked Ginny, giggling causing Harry to give her a playful glare.

**But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon - they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas. **

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

Fred and George then started staring intently at Dudley then proudly declared " Yeah we can see the resemblance."

"The poor gorilla," said Ginny sadly as Harry snickered.

While nobody seemed to mind that he and Ginny have been practically connected at the hip he still felt that his feelings about the youngest Weasley was a bit wrong. She was Ron's sister and that's all she really was to him, right? The churning in his stomach seemed to disagree. He never felt the same way when he ever looked at Cho.

Thinking of Cho was making him think of Cedric, would he ever stop blaming himself for Cedric's death?

**Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him.**

**They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.**

"Harry should have been given his own straight off." Declared Lily heatedly.

**Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.**

**After lunch they went to the reptile house.**

Harry started to move nervously in his chair.

**It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can - but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.**

**Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.**

**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**

**"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

**Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.**

" It's pretty bad when you start to compare yourself to a snake," said Charlie sadly, ignoring Snape's sneer.

**The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's and winked.**

Snakes can't wink they don't have eyelids replied Hermione.

**Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

**The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:**

**"I get that all the time."**

**"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."**

Harry could feel stares on him.

"Y- You're a Parselmouth? How?" James muttered in disbelief.

"Don't know" replied Harry

**The snake nodded vigorously.**

**"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.**

**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.**

_**Boa Constrictor, Brazil.**_

**"Was it nice there?"**

**The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"**

"Only youwould start having a normal conversation with a snake about Brazil." said Sirius as he chuckled weakly.

Harry's head snapped up as he studied his those around him, looking for any signs of disgust. James winked at him and said It doesn't change anything Harry we know who you really are then he nodded to William to keep reading.

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"**

**Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.**

"How long were you in the reptile house for days" asked Fred earning a glare from Petunia and Dudley which he ignored.

**"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. **

**What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror. Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.**

There were several cheers in the room as several gave Harry impressed looks.

"Now if Potter could do that during class…" murmured Minerva to herself.

**The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**

**As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."**

"Polite snake" observed Regulus.

"Yes it was I wonder if he ever made it." Harry pondered to himself.

**The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

**"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**

"It went _poof!_" said Fred beaming.

"Like magic!" said George, also beaming. Harry rolled his eyes again as people in the room chuckled.

**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.**

**But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"**

Many groans were exchanged around the room at the boy's luck.

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," Before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**

Mrs. Weasley was eyeing Harry's thin frame. "He could be fattened up a bit more" thought Molly.

"And how long did you stay in the cupboard this time, Harry?" Hermione inquired quietly.

" About three days" said Harry casually.

Cries of outrage were heard throughout the room and glares were sent to Petunia.

**Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.**

**He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.**

James's face blanched.

"You remember that?" Lupin asked quietly. Harry shifted uncomfortably with the amount of staring.

**This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all.**

**His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**

**When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family.**

we would have but we weren't allowed to said Sirius and Lupin as they shot a glare at Dumbledore who was sitting extraordinarily silent.

**Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look**.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE," thundered Moody, making everyone jump as Tonks gave her mentor a disagreeable look.

"You don't have to shout we are in the same room Mad Eye" the young Auror admonished.

**At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

"that's the end of the chapter. Who wants to read next " asked William.

"I will" replied Lupin taking the book from him.

**Authors Note:**

There may be gaps of various lengths between chapters because of my busy schedule with school and other stuff. But I will never abandon this or any other story I begin. I have this story pretty much planned out for how I want it to finish.

.


	6. The Letters from No One

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling.

Please take part in the poll on my profile page; it will be open until 6/28/2013

_HP&TROP_

Remus turned the page to the next chapter and began to read **"The Letters from No One."**

"Ohh Hogwarts letters" shouted Sirius.

"We know Sirius" said Remus irritably.

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

Poor Arabella," said Dumbledore sadly still looking at the opposite wall and refusing to meet Harry's eye.

Why is he ignoring me?Harry thought with annoyance.

**Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader.**

**The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.**

"Grrrr" growled Sirius and Remus much to the amusement of the rest of the room.

"Duddykins Hunting!" Fred and George shouted out with glee.

Mrs. Weasley reprimanded them with a look, and then turned to her husband when she noticed that he was giving them a thumbs-up.

**This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

**"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"**

**"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilets never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick."**

Everyone started laughing heartily. The twins were rolling on the ground clutching their stomachs.

"You definitely got your mother's cheek, Potter," said Minerva as she tried to contain a smile.

"It's good that you get your wit from me Harry" Lily exclaimed looking at her future son fondly.

"Hey I can be witty when I want to be. " countered James.

**Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he'd said.**

"It's been five years and he's still trying to work that out" exclaimed Fred while looking at a confused Dudley.

**One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figgs'. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. **

"Finally the evil of the Feline race is revealed!" yelled Sirius, but instantly became quiet as McGonagall shot him a fierce glare.

**She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

"Poor chocolate," blurted Remus making Tonks laugh leading Remus to blush.

Sirius let out a barking laugh and James gave Lily an amused look.

**That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters.**

**They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

"You've got to be kidding me," said Hermione and Ron, before grinning at each other and suddenly turning away so neither saw the blush appearing on both their cheeks.

Ginny and Harry shared knowing looks as they both seemed to have guessed the same thing.

**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. **

**Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, He looked so handsome and grown-up.**

"That's disgusting," said the twins as they were having difficulty containing their laughter.

"I'll have you know that he looked very dignified" exclaimed Petunia outraged.

"Sure Tuney" replied Lily sarcastically.

**Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

Harry didn't restrain himself from chuckling at his cousin now.

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.**

Many wrinkled their noses in distaste.

**What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.**

"Shame on you, Harry," said Fred and George as they mockingly glared at him.

"Yeah how dare you seek knowledge" said Sirius also as he mockingly glared at his God-son, playing along with the twins.

Remus rolled his eyes at the maturity of his friend as everyone laughed.

**"Your new school uniform," she said.**

**Harry looked in the bowl again.**

**"O****"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dying some of Dudley's old things grey for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."**

"I seriously doubt that," muttered Ginny.

**Harry seriously doubted this,**

Ginny and Harry exchanged quick smiles.

**But thought it best not to argue. **

Ron raised an eyebrow at his friend as he tried not to laugh.

"Shut up," said Harry as he playfully glared at him.

**He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High - like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

**They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.**

**"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

**h," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."**

"More of your mum's quick wit Harry." exclaimed James.

**"Make Harry get it."**

**"Get the mail, Harry."**

**"Make Dudley get it."**

**"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."**

**Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and - a letter for Harry.**

"Hoggy, warty Hogwarts, teach us something new!" sang the twins receiving an applause from the Headmaster as they got up and took a bow. Harry tried to catch the headmaster's eye again, but Dumbledore had merely looked down to stare at his interwoven fingers.

**Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? **

"Ginny," declared all the Weasley boys, making said person blush furiously as she glared at them. Fred and George jumped behind their chairs and they pretended to shake with fear.

Harry just sent her a warm smile and whispered in her ear." It would have been appreciated if you had written me even then."

**He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

**Mr. H. Potter**

**The Cupboard under the Stairs**

**4 Privet Drive**

**Little Whinging**

**Surrey**

**The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

"Oh, Harry, I was meaning to ask," began Arthur, unaware of his wife's glare. "Did we put enough stamps on your letter last summer?"

Harry laughed as he recalled the letter that was sent to him from the Weasley's in the beginning of his fourth year. There had been just about enough room to write the address.

"Plenty," said Harry grinning. "Though, you only needed one."

"Oh," said Arthur, turning the famous Weasley red.

"I told him," Mrs. Weasley muttered to herself.

**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion,**

Yea Gryffindor" shouted James, Sirius, and William.

"**"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

Hermione and Harry rolled their eyes as almost everyone else looked around confused.

**Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

**Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.**

**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk..."**

**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"**

"Git," muttered almost everyone.

**Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.**

**"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.**

"Lily's temper is coming up," said Remus and Sirius knowingly.

**"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.**

Tonks immediately changed her hair to said color making Harry make a face before she changed it back to bubble gum pink.

**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.**

**Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

**"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"**

Everyone rolled their eyes, even Percy. Percy was having a difficult time not joining in on his family banters. I am a Ministry of Magic official_._ Percy reminded himself sternly before sitting more rigidly in his arm chair as he looked around arrogantly.

**They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick. **

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

**"I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**

**"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**

**Harry didn't move.**

**"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.**

"Sounds like you Lily" stated James as mater of factly promptly receiving a glare from said witch.

**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. **

**Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor. **

**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"**

**"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

"Paranoid much" exclaimed Gideon.

"CONSTANT VIGELANCE" bellowed Mad Eye making everyone jump.

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want-"**

**Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**

**"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything..."**

**"But-"**

**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"**

The effect of those last words was instantaneous as cries of outrage broke out. Harry even saw Dumbledore wince.

"Harry, did he ever beat you?" asked Sirius as black bored into green after the shouting had gone down a bit.

"Err – of course not," said Harry as he put a hand through his hair nervously. What was the big deal?

Some people were sighing in relief, but those closest to him were fuming with anger.

Sirius was about to yell, but Remus gave him a look that said quite plainly; we'll talk to him later.

Sirius nodded and leaned back weakly.

Petunia spoke up Every time Vernon wanted to beat Harry I convinced him not to. Much to my own perils. Lily gave her sister an appreciative look for at least trying to protect her son.

**That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard. **

"He actually fit" queried Sirius in astonishment.

"Just his head" replied Harry.

**"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"**

**"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."**

**"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."**

**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

**"Err - yes, Harry - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."**

"That Stupid git had a second bedroom!?" yelled Ron and Ginny.

"RON! GINNY!" admonished Mrs. Weasley who silently agreed with them.

**"Why?" said Harry.**

**"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."**

**The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been cancelled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it.**

**Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.**

Hermione glared at the book, making Harry laugh.

**From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't want him in there... I need that room... make him get out..."**

**Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.**

**Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back.**

"Spoiled brat," muttered Mrs. Weasley making those closest casually edge away from her.

**Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

**When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "there's another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive - '"**

**With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. **

"Ah, so that's where I learned it," said Harry as he winked at his two best friends.

Ron and Hermione laughed as Sirius and Remus gave each other worried looks.

**After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.**

**"Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley - go - just go."**

**Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.**

"Oh no," said Hermione dramatically making everyone laugh as Harry glared at her.

"My plans aren't that bad," defended Harry.

"Sure they're not, mate," said Ron as he rolled his eyes.

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

**He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door -**

**"AAAAARRRGH!"**

**Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive!**

**Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face.**

"Yes!" said Fred and George and they got up to high-five each other. Mrs. Weasley sent them a look, making them rush back to their seats at once.

**Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

**"I want - " he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.**

"That's horrible," declared Tonks as her hair shifted to red.

**Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.**

**"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."**

**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."**

**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

**On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**

**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

"Completely mental," muttered Ginny.

**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window.**

**While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**

**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement.**

Ginny sent her brothers a glare before they could open their mouths.

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.**

**"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today-"**

"But why?" Arthur asked curiously looking from Hermione to Harry.

"Because Muggles don't get post on Sundays, It's a religious conviction sort of thing having something to do with the Christian Sabbath," said Harry before Hermione could open her mouth.

Everyone stared at Harry. Hermione looked at him in astonishment.

Harry was starting to feel awkward. It wasn't like he acted stupid all the time. He did go to a Muggle elementary school...

Harry cleared his throat loudly causing Hermione to jump. She sent him a embarrassed look.

**Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one **

**"Out! OUT!"**

**Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall.**

**When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"**

**He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue.**

**Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

**They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.**

**"Shake 'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

"The horror!" yelled the Weasley twins.

**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering...**

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. **

"That's hardly a meal!" shouted Sirius and Ron in revulsion. Almost everyone rolled their eyes.

**They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."**

**She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:**

**Mr. H. Potter**

**Room 17**

**Railview Hotel**

**Cokeworth**

Cokeworth exclaimed Petunia, Lily, and Snape.

Your mother Severus and I used to live in Cokeworth explained Petunia to a confused looking Harry.

I still do growled Snape irritably.

**Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.**

**"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.**

**"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**

**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon.**

**Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.**

**It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled. **

**It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."**

**Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun - last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day.**

"What!?" yelled half the people in the room.

Harry looked down, which made him miss all of the knowing looks between almost everyone in the room. Harry was going to get spoiled for his next birthday.

"Every time I bought a present for Harry Vernon either threw it out or gave it to Dudley." explained Petunia sadly.

Harry just gave his Aunt a small smile. He knew that despite her jealousy over her sister and Uncle Vernon's abusive tendencies that aunt Petunia really did care about him. Perhaps when this is over they could figure out a way to get her away from him.

**Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.**

**"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"**

**It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain; there was no television in there.**

**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"**

**A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-grey water below them.**

**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"**

**It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**

**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

"Cozy," said Bill and Charlie dryly.

**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas.**

Everyone frowned. That was hardly a proper meal!

**He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.**

**"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.**

**He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**

**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

Sirius growled loudly.

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.**

**Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. **

"Always keeping a positive perspective," said Hermione as she rolled her eyes.

**Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.**

**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**

**One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty... ten... nine - maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him**

**- three... two... one...**

**BOOM.**

Everyone jumped as Remus screamed out the word as he grinned sheepishly.

**The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

"That's the chapter who wants to read next?" Remus inquired

I will replied James taking the book.

_HP&TROP_

**Authors Note:**

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorite and followed this story so far. Feel free to PM me with any sugestions and I woll take them into consideration. Remember to take the poll in my profile.


	7. The Keeper of Keys

The results of the poll are in and 2 out of 3 people are in favor of Harry and Ginny getting together during the reading of Sorcerer's Stone. While not the best results I will take what I can get and indulge my loyal readers, probably in the next few chapters. Thank you for all of your support.

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling.

_HP&TROP_

"**The Keeper of Keys."** started James cheerfully glancing at Hagrid.

**BOOM.**

James shouted earning glares from the rest of the room.

**They knocked again.**

**Dudley jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly. There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands - now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.**

The Muggle-borns, Half-bloods and those who Purebloods who took Muggle Studies gasped as they glared murderously at the book.

"He has a rifle around children" Elizabeth shouted incredulously.

"That is not safe no offence Tuney but your husband really is an idiot." Lily replied worriedly.

"**Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you - I'm armed!"**

**There was a pause. Then - SMASH! The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.**

**A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.**

"Hagrid" Shouted Fred and George excitedly causing said Half- Giant to grin at them fondly.

**The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.**

**"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh. It's not been an easy journey..."**

**He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.**

**"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.**

**Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.**

**"An' here's Harry!" said the giant.**

**Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.**

**"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yet dad, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes."**

"The first time I ever heard that," smiled Harry shyly.

"And what beautiful eyes they are" said James looking at Lily adoringly.

Both Ginny and Severus silently agreed

**Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise. "I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"**

**"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; **

"Um actually he's a Half-Giant" declared Ron indignantly.

"What's the difference?" Dudley sneered nastily.

"Full Giants are about 12 feet tall and would rather kill ya as soon as look at ya now shut up boy." Snapped Mad-eye.

**He reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.**

**Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on. **

"**Anyway - Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here - I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right." From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.**

"That was nice of you," said Lily smiling fondly at Hagrid.

**Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you."**

"Manners, Harry," admonished the Weasley twins mockingly.

**The giant chuckled. "True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.**

**What about that tea then, eh." he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."**

The adults in the room all snorted. That's Hagrid for you alright.

**His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.**

**The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea.**

"Mmm, Firewhisky," moaned Sirius.

Several of the adults were giving him scathing looks.

**Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley." **

**The giant chuckled darkly. "Yet great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry." **

Chuckles were carried around the room.

**He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant. **

**Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are." **

**The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.**

**"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."**

**"Er - no," said Harry. "Sorry," Harry added quickly.**

**Hagrid looked shocked.**

**"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?"**

**"All what?" asked Harry.**

Everyone groaned as they waited for Hagrid's response.

**"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered.**

**Now wait jus' one second!" He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut.**

**The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.**

**"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy - this boy! - knows nothin' abou' - about ANYTHING?"**

Hermione rolled her as she guessed what her friend was thinking.

**Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad. "I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff." **

**But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world." **

**"What world?" Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.**

"Uh oh," muttered Bill.

**"DURSLEY!" he boomed.**

**Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble."**

" That's not a word." Muttered Hermione darkly.

**Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.**

**"But yeh must know about yet mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."**

**"My - my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"**

Snape noticed that Potter didn't ask to clarify that he was famous. Maybe his arrogance just grew after entering Hogwarts but then again he was raised by Petunia. mused Snape as he tried to figure out Harry.

**Yeh don' know... yeh don' know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.**

**"Yeh don' know what yeh are." he said finally.**

**Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.**

**"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"**

Those who knew Hagrid rolled their eyes at the stupid Muggle's foolishness.

**Braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.**

**"You never told him. Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him. I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years."**

**"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.**

**"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.**

**Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.**

**"Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. **

**"Harry - yer a wizard."**

"That's straight to the point," said Hermione as she rolled her eyes.

**There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.**

**"- a what?" gasped Harry.**

"A wizard," said the twins very slowly making Harry roll his eyes.

**"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be. An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."**

Tonks and Sirius cheered.

**Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to **

**Mr. H. Potter**

**The Floor**

**Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea.**

**He pulled out the letter and read: **

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

**Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)**

**Dear Mr. Potter,**

**We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.**

**Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.**

**Yours sincerely,**

**Minerva McGonagall,**

**Deputy Headmistress**

**Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"**

"That's the first question you ask?" asked Ron bemused.

**"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl - a long quill, and a roll of parchment.**

**With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:**

Many impressed looks were directed at Harry who didn't understand what was impressive, which made Hermione snort.

_**Dear Professor Dumbledore,**_

_**Given Harry his letter.**_

**Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.**

**Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.**

**Hagrid**

"Nice," said George brightly.

"Short," said Fred as bright as his twin.

"Simple," ended the Prewett twins earning astonished looks from Fred and George.

**Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.**

**"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.**

**"He's not going," he said.**

**Hagrid grunted.**

**"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.**

**"A what?" said Harry, interested.**

**"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call non-magic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."**

"Literally and figuratively," whispered Ron into Hermione's ear making her laugh then blush when she noticed that everyone was staring at her.

**Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.**

**"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"**

Many growls were exchanged around the room. Harry thought that he could almost feel the vibrations of them in the air.

**"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a - a wizard." **

**"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was. Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school-and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak!"**

Cries of outrage were carried around the room as James, Sirius, and Snape looked murderous at the book. Remus was trying to control the beast within.

Petunia only stared at the floor ashamed of saying anything so horrible about her little sister who despite her jealousy and their differences she still loved very much and always would.

"**But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.**

**"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as - as - abnormal - and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"**

**Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up. You told me they died in a car crash!"**

**"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!" **

**"But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently.**

**The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.**

**"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh - but someone's gotta - yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'." He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.**

"That would have been a disaster," muttered McGonagall to Mrs. Weasley who nodded.

**"Well, its best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh - mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..." He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows -"**

**"Who?"**

**"Well - I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does." **

**"Why not?" **

**"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..." Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.**

**"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.**

**"Nah -can't spell it. All right - Voldemort."**

"Can't believe you got him to say it," said Hermione looking impressed at Harry.

**Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this - this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too - some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right."**

"**Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him - an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway."**

"**Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side."**

"This isn't Star Wars," snorted Sirius.

"Thank Merlin James bloody dragged Lily, Sirius and I to see that damned movie nearly16 times." grumbled Remus.

**"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' - an' -" Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.**

Many people smiled sadly.

**"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad - knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find - anyway..."**

**"You-Know-Who killed 'em.**

Harry was looking down at his shoes. And now he wants to kill me,thought Harry bitterly.

**An' then - an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing - he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead. That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh - took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even - but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry."**

"**No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age - the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts**

Mrs. Weasley cried out at the name of her brothers as Arthur comforted his wife as best as he could.

Everyone shot sad glances to Marlene, Fabian and Gideon.

Albus cleared his throat and declared to the three. " I am sure you all fought bravely to the end like true Gryffindors."

**an' you was only a baby, an' you lived." **

**Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before - and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.**

Many shivered as they looked at Harry with astonishment that he could remember that. No eleven-year-old or anyone for that matter should have to hear You-Know-Who's laugh.

**Hagrid was watching him sadly.**

**"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot..."**

**"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there. **

**Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.**

**"Now, you listen here, boy," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured**

More glares were directed toward the book as James, Remus, and Sirius were reminded that they need to have a talk with Harry soon.

**- and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion - asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types - just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end -"**

**But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley -I'm warning you - one more word... " **

**In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.**

**Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.**

**"But what happened to Vol-, sorry - I mean, You-Know-Who?"**

"Sure, back then you had the decency to not say his name, but not now," said Ron as he shook his head.

**"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful - why'd he go?**

**"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it.**

**People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back."**

**"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on - I dunno what it was, no one does - but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."**

"That was Mum not me," muttered Harry in the ear of Ginny who gave him a sympathetic look.

**Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake.**

**A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard. If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?**

**"Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard." To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.**

**"Not a wizard, eh. Never made things happen when you was scared or angry." Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry... chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach... dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it. Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?**

**Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him.**

**"See." said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard - you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."**

**But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.**

**"Haven't I told you he's not going." he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish - spell books and wands and -"**

**"If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter' s son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad."**

Everyone nodded furiously.

**His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled-" **

**"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.**

"He's either really brave or incredibly dumb" declared Charlie in awe.

"Personally I think he's rather stupid" Ron replied.

**But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER," he thundered, "- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDORE- IN- FRONT- OF- ME!"**

**He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley - there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.**

The room immediately roared with laughter. The twins were rolling on the ground, clutching their stomachs.

Mrs. Weasley and McGonagall were giving Hagrid disapproving looks, but even they couldn't hold back the twitch in their lips.

**Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.**

**Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard. "Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."**

More laughter broke out at their friend.

**He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.**

**"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm - er - not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff - one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job."**

**"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.**

**"Oh, well - I was at Hogwarts meself but I - er - got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore." **

**"Why were you expelled?"**

"We never did find out," said the James, Lupin, Sirius, Tonks, Bill and Charlie wistfully.

"I really don like talkin bout it meself, bad memories see" Hagrid replied sullenly.

The trio exchanged knowing looks that James caught as he looked open mouthed at them.

"Second year," said Harry with a wink.

**"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that." He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.**

**"You can kip under that,"** **he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."**

"That's the end of the chapter who reads next," said James

" I will then it should be time for dinner and then off to bed, we will start earlier in the morning" volunteered Elizabeth taking the book from James.


	8. Diagon Alley

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling.

_HP&TROP_

Elizabeth took a look at the chapter and a with a smile began to read.

"**Diagon Alley," **

**Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight. "It was a dream," he told himself firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my cupboard."**

**There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.**

**'And there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door,' Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.**

**Tap. Tap. Tap.**

"**All right," Harry mumbled, "I'm getting up." He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.**

**Harry scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him.**

"The poor balloon," said Luna in her usual dreamy voice making everyone jump as they stared at her.

Ginny giggled. And whispered in Harry's ear making him shiver in an odd sense of delight "that is Luna Lovegood. She's a fourth year in Ravenclaw and my best friend growing up.

**He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.**

**"Don't do that." Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.**

"Bad move, Harry," laughed Charlie.

**"Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl…"**

**"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa**

**"What?"**

**"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets." Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets - bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags... finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.**

**"Best be off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school." Harry was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. He had just thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture.**

"Probably the Nargles," said Luna,

"What are Nargles?" inquired Ron, curiously.

"Creatures that live in mistletoe, they're always stealing my shoes," said Luna, still not looking at anyone.

Ron wished he never asked and Hermione stared at her with suspicion.

Ginny was giggling again.

**"Um – Hagrid?"**

**"Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.**

**"I haven't got any money - and you heard Uncle Vernon last night ... he won't pay for me to go and learn magic."**

**"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"**

**"But if their house was destroyed -"**

**"They didn' keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold - an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."**

**"Wizards have banks?"**

**"Just the one. Gringotts.**

" With branches on every continent with a wizarding population." Stated Bill impressively.

**Run by goblins." Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding.**

**"Goblins?"**

Everyone shivered except Bill. "I only know a few that are actually decent like Griphook and Ragnok," Bill said frowning.

"**Yeah - so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe - 'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you, gettin' things from Gringotts - knows he can trust me, see."**

**"Got everythin'? Come on, then."**

**Harry followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.**

"How did you get back ?" asked Hermione.

" The Coast Guard." Answered an embarrassed Petunia.

**"How did you get here?" Harry asked, looking around for another boat.**

**"Flew," said Hagrid.**

"Flew?" inquired Tonks.

**"Flew?"**

Tonks blushed.

"How did you fly Hagrid surely you didn't take Sirius's Bike." Questioned Hermione.

"A coupla thestrals connected to a carriage." Hagrid Answered.

**"Yeah - but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh." They settled down in the boat, Harry still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.**

**"Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving Harry another of his sideways looks. "If I was ter - er - speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"**

Several people snorted.

**"Of course not," said Harry, eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.**

**"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry asked.**

**"Spells - enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the high security vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way - Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."**

"Wouldn't be surprised if you broke into Gringotts later in the books," said Sirius sarcastically.

" With the way the last four years turned out I wouldn't rule out the possibility." Affirmed Harry thoughtfully.

**Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, he'd never had so many questions in his life.**

**"Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.**

Everyone nodded grimly in agreement.

**"There's a Ministry of Magic?" Harry asked, before he could stop himself.**

**"'Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one.**

**So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice." **

"Does he really, sir?" asked Percy quietly making all the Weasley's glare at him.

Dumbledore nodded.

**"But what does a Ministry of Magic do?"**

**"Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."**

**"Why?"**

**"Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."**

"Do you ever stop asking questions?" asked Ginny, giving Harry a fond smile that Harry returned.

**At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.**

**Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Harry couldn't blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, Harry? Things these Muggles dream up, eh."**

"Keeping a low profile, I see." said Moody sarcastically, as he gave the book a sour look.

"**Hagrid," said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"**

"There better not be," said Charlie and Hermione menacingly as they frowned at the red head working at the Wizarding bank.

Bill thought it was best not to answer.

**"Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."**

**"You'd like one?"**

The trio and Hagrid exchanged knowing looks.

**"Wanted one ever since I was a kid - here we go." They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money," as he called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their tickets.**

**People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.**

**"Still got yer letter, Harry?" he asked as he counted stitches. Harry took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.**

**"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh need."**

**Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn't noticed the night before, and read:**

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

**UNIFORM - First-year students will require:**

**Three sets of plain work robes (black)**

**One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear**

**One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)**

**One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)**

**Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags**

**COURSE BOOKS - All students should have a copy of each of the following:**

**The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk**

**A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot**

**Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling**

**A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emetic Switch**

"Taught by an amazing Professor," said Sirius before grinning at Minerva.

McGonagall gave him a look that unmistakably says: Don't be a suck up, but Harry noticed her cheeks were blushing pink with pride.

**One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore**

**Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger**

**Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander**

"They don't mention Crumple-Horned Snorkacks," said Luna dreamily as she twirled her butterbeer cork necklace between her fingers.

**The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble**

**OTHER EQUIPMENT –**

**wand**

**cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)**

**set of glass or crystal phials**

**telescope**

**set of brass scales**

**Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad**

**PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS.**

**"Can we buy all this in London?" Harry wondered aloud.**

**"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.**

**Harry had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.**

**"I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.**

**Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks?**

**Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up?**

"They don't have the brains or imagination to think all this up, Well at Vermin, I mean Vernon doesn't," said Tonks cheerfully as she decided to change her hair to a bright purple.

"Lilac looks good on you," muttered Remus to Tonks.

Tonks blushed as Sirius winked at Remus.

**If Harry hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn't help trusting him.**

**"This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place." It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub.**

**If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it.**

**Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him inside.**

**For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut.**

"I do love your descriptions, Harry," said Remus as he smiled at Harry, who proceeded to blush.

**The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?"**

**"Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hand on Harry's shoulder and making Harry's knees buckle.**

" And so the frenzy begins." Muttered Harry earning him sympathetic looks from most of the room.

**"Good Lord," said the bartender, peering at Harry, "is this- can this be-?" The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.**

**"Bless my soul," whispered the old bartender, "Harry Potter... what an honor." He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes.**

" Good bloke that Tom." Said James smiling.

"And he only got better, We went there for a little bit during James's bachelor party," said Sirius with a faraway expression. "Tom always gave him free drinks after that night."

"And James couldn't remember why," smirked Remus as he, too, remembered that night.

"What happened?" asked Harry eagerly.

"Yeah what did I do?" James asked worriedly.

"He started dancing on the countertop as the people around the bar dared him to do various things. The bar became quite popular after that." said Sirius as he snickered.

Sirius looked like he was going to go into more detail, but Mrs. Weasley shot him a look that made Sirius gulp.

**"Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back." Harry didn't know what to say. Everyone was looking at him. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out.**

**Hagrid was beaming.**

**Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.**

**"Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."**

**"So proud, Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud."**

**"Always wanted to shake your hand - I'm all of a flutter."**

**"Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."**

**"I've seen you before!" said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle's top hat fell off in his excitement. "You bowed to me once in a shop."**

**"He remembers!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? He remembers me!"**

Dumbledore chuckled lightly as the adults who knew the wizard rolled their eyes.

"Good old Dedalaus" laughed Sirius.

**Harry shook hands again and again - Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.**

**A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.**

**"Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."**

**"P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand, "c-can't t-tell you how p- pleased I am to meet you."**

The trio glared at the book with so much hatred everyone in the room were surprised it didn't burst into flames.

"**What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?"**

**"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor Quirrell, as though he'd rather not think about it. "N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter." He laughed nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose. I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.**

"How can one teach the class and be afraid of the subject?" asked Remus bewildered.

**But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.**

**"Must get on - lots ter buy. Come on, Harry."**

**Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now, where's me umbrella?"**

**Vampires. Hags. Harry's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.**

**"Three up... two across," he muttered. "Right, stand back, Harry." He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.**

**The brick he had touched quivered - it wriggled - in the middle, a small hole appeared - it grew wider and wider - a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.**

**"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley." He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.**

Sirius and Remus were glowering at the headmaster. They should have been the ones to take Harry to Diagon Ally to get his school things.

**The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop.**

**Cauldrons - All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self-Stirring - Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.**

"Lily was brilliant at potions," said Remus.

"My second favorite class." Stated Lily.

**"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."**

**Harry wished he had about eight more eyes.**

**He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.**

**A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad..."**

**A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand - fastest ever -"**

All Quidditch fans in the room seemed to get a glazed look in their eye.

**There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon...**

**"Gringotts," said Hagrid.**

**They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was - "Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him.**

**The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:**

**Enter, stranger, but take heed**

**Of what awaits the sin of greed,**

**For those who take, but do not earn,**

**Must pay most dearly in their turn.**

**So if you seek beneath our floors**

**A treasure that was never yours,**

**Thief, you have been warned, beware**

**Of finding more than treasure there.**

"I love that poem," sighed Tonks, smiling. Remus looked at her curiously for he liked it too.

**"Like I said, Yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.**

" Or desperate" replied William.

**A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses.**

**There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and Harry made for the counter.**

**"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe."**

**"You have his key, Sir?"**

**"Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers.**

**The goblin wrinkled his nose.**

The twins exchanged gleeful looks as plans to annoy the goblins passed through them.

**"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.**

**The goblin looked at it closely.**

**"That seems to be in order."**

**"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen." The goblin read the letter carefully.**

Several people groaned. They knew what Harry was like.

**"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!" Griphook was yet another goblin.**

"one of the more Wizard tolerant goblins, that is why he is in charge of the carts, mind he is still quite sadistic at times." Replied Bill

**Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.**

**"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry asked.**

**"Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."**

More groans were exchanged around the room knowing that Hagrid made it worse.

**Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in - Hagrid with some difficulty - and were off.**

**At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible.**

" It's a wonder you were able to remember that far." Bill stated in amazement. "Most wizards tend to get confused after the first left.

"That'll come in handy if you ever do need to break in." stated Remus.

**The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.**

**Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - - they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.**

**"I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite."**

"Stalagmite up, stalactite down." said Hermione immediately.

"**Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said Hagrid.**

Everyone laughed at Hermione's peeved expression.

Harry and Ginny looked at each other with amusement, which gave Harry the sudden urge to kiss her and he fought it violently down. Where had that urge come from? He shook his head, and focused on the reading.

"**An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick." He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.**

**Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.**

Harry looked down at his shoes in embarrassment as he knew that the Weasley's were quite poor.

**"All yours," smiled Hagrid.**

**All Harry's - it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.**

**Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag.**

**"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh."**

**He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"**

**"One speed only," said Griphook.**

**They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck.**

"Thank you Hagrid." Lily gratefully cried to the half giant.

**Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.**

**"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.**

**"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.**

**"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside." Harry asked.**

**"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin.**

A few people shivered at that.

**Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least - but at first he thought it was empty.**

**Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor.**

**Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.**

"That's a first," said the Weasley twins grinning as they tried weakly to erase the tension in the room.

A few gave feeble chuckles as Harry blushed.

**Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.**

**One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life - more money than even Dudley had ever had.**

**"Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.**

"Do you meet a friend, Harry?" asked Lily, relieved he was getting some interaction.

" Not Exactly." Harry grimaced,

**Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.**

**"Hogwarts, dear?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here - another young man being fitted up just now, in fact."**

**In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.**

**"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"**

**"Yes," said Harry.**

**"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice.**

"Oh," Tonks huffed, disappointed, as a few people laughed

"**Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."**

**Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley**.

" Am I really that bad?" asked Dudley.

" I think you are somewhat redeemable, him on the other hand not so much." Harry said thoughtfully.

**Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.**

**"No," said Harry.**

**"Play Quidditch at all?"**

**"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.**

" It's an outrage, Harry you do play Quidditch don't you?" asked James

" That is for me to know ant you to find out." Harry replied with an malevolent grin.

**"I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"**

**"No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.**

**"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"**

Tonks sent a glare at the book muttering " Hufflepuffs aren't that bad.

**"Mmm," said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.**

**"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.**

Mrs. Weasley and Sirius smiled.

**That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts."**

**"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"**

Sounds a lot like something Cissy would say, he's not her son by any chance is it?" inquired Andromeda.

"Could be Bellatrix's son" replied Gideon

" Not really since her husband is afraid to touch her" responded Sirius.

**"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking this boy less and less every second.**

**"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage - lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."**

"He is not a savage he is a wonderful caring person" seethed Lily shooting a reassuring smile in Hagrids direction.

"**I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.**

**"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"**

**"They're dead," said Harry shortly. He didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.**

**"Oh, sorry," said the other, not sounding sorry at all.**

Everyone were wearing sad looks as Tonks' hair turned black.

**"But they were our kind, weren't they?"**

**"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."**

Several nodded approvingly at Harry's choice of words.

**"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you. They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"**

**But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.**

**"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.**

**Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).**

"That's James and I's favorite," said Sirius smiling.

**"What's up?" said Hagrid.**

**"Nothing," Harry lied.**

"You're such a horrible liar, Harry," said Hermione.

**They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"**

**"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know - not knowin' about Quidditch!"**

**"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pate boy in Madam Malkin's. "-and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in."**

**"Yer not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were - he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh.**

**Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles - look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"**

"Indeed," muttered several people.

**"So what is Quidditch?"**

**"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like - like soccer in the Muggle world - everyone follows Quidditch - played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls - sorta hard ter explain the rules."**

"Is not!" yelled all the Quidditch enthusiasts in outrage.

**"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"**

**"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but -"**

Tonks' hair turned red as she glowered at the book.

**"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff" said Harry gloomily.**

**"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin.**

Snape, and Regulus sneered at the book with loathing.

**You-Know-Who was one."**

**"Vol-, sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"**

**"Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.**

**They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all.**

**Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More)by Professor Vindictus Viridian.**

**"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."**

Everyone laughed as the grinning Weasley twins said "Nice one, mate."

Sirius was letting out a barking laugh.

**"I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea,**

McGonagall rolled her eyes.

**but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."**

**Hagrid wouldn't let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either ("It says pewter on yer list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope.**

**Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).**

**Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry's list again.**

"**Just yer wand left - yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."**

"The most important part of being a wizard" stated Sirius.

"Unless he has inherited the Potters propensity for wandless magic." Stated William looking hopefully at Harry who just shrugged.

**Harry felt himself go red. "You don't have to -"**

**"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at**

All the teens and Professors looked at Neville who blushed.

**- an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."**

**Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing.**

"She sounds beautiful." Lily said with a smile.

"She is." Replied Ginny.

"She's very intelligent too." Hermione added

Harry just smiled at the thought of his feathered companion.

**He couldn't stop stammering his thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.**

Harry glared at the book at being compared to the stuttering faker.

**"Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivander's left now - only place fer wands, Ollivander's, and yeh gotta have the best wand." A magic wand... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.**

**The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivander's: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.**

**A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait. Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.**

"Impressive," said many of the adults making Harry blush.

**"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.**

**An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.**

**"Hello," said Harry awkwardly.**

**"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."**

"Another of my favorite classes." replied Lily.

**Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.**

Many nodded in agreement.

**"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration.**

**Well, I say your father favored it - it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course." Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.**

**"And that's where..." Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger.**

**"**That's really creepy," muttered Tonks**.**

**"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly.**

**"Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..." He shook his head and then, to Harry's relief, spotted Hagrid.**

**"Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it."**

**"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.**

**"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled." said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.**

**"Er - yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.**

**"But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.**

**"Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.**

Almost everyone snorted.

**"Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look.**

**"Well, now - Mr. Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"**

**"Er - well, I'm right-handed," said Harry.**

**"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."**

**Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.**

**"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave." Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.**

**"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try -" Harry tried - but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.**

**"No, no -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."**

**Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.**

"The more the challenge, the better," said Dumbledore as his eyes twinkled.

**"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere - I wonder, now - - yes, why not - unusual combination - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."**

**Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls.**

**Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... " He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious…"**

**"Sorry," said Harry, "but what's curious?" Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.**

**"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar." Harry swallowed.**

Remus's expression went thoughtful as Harry stared at the headmaster, remembering what had happened to him in the graveyard. Sirius was looking at Harry as he noticed his God-son pale face before remembering the condition of Harry after the Tri-Wizard tournament.

**"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great."**

"Is he giving You-Know-Who a compliment?" asked Ron, speaking up. Harry noticed his voice was still laced with anger.

"Just the magic, I think." said Dumbledore.

**Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.**

**The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Harry didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; he didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Harry's lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder.**

**"Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said.**

**He bought Harry a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.**

"Don't worry, Harry Potter, that's just the Nargles as they buzz in your ears," said Luna dreamily as Ginny stifled a giggle.

"Er – "

**"You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.**

**Harry wasn't sure he could explain. He'd just had the best birthday of his life - and yet - he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the words.**

**"Everyone thinks I'm special," he said at last. "All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander... but I don't know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when Vol-, sorry - I mean, the night my parents died."**

**Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.**

**"Don' you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts - I did - still do, 'smatter of fact."**

**Hagrid helped Harry on to the train that would take him back to the Dursleys, then handed him an envelope.**

**"Yer ticket fer Hogwarts, " he said. "First o' September - King's Cross - it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me... See yeh soon, Harry."**

**The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.**

"Well that's the end of the chapter." Elizabeth said while carefully putting the book down so not to lose its place.

Much like lunch dinner was a catered affair in which the room's occupants sat around discussing what they have read thus far.

After a hearty meal everyone adjourned to their respective bedrooms each with big brass nameplates of the doors.


	9. The Journey from Platform Nine and Three

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own anyone from the Harry Potter world; all rights belong to JK Rowling.

_HP&TROP_

Early the next morning everyone awoke to the delicious aroma of breakfast being serve in the common room.

Harry groggily walked out of his bedroom and sat at the large table next to Ginny who promptly filled his plate for him and took notice of the goings on at the table.

Fred and George were discussing plans for a joke shop with Sirius, Gideon and Fabian.

James and Lily were discussing the books while everyone else was too wrapped up in the food to hold a conversation.

Remus and Tonks were busy making goo goo eyes at each other when one thought the other wasn't looking.

After everyone had had enough to eat they resumed their places in the lounge area.

"Who wants to read next" questioned Albus.

"I will if that is alright with you Harry" replied Lily.

"Of course." Harry replied handing her the book.

"**The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," **read Lily.

**Harry's last month with the Dursley's wasn't fun.**

"Is it ever?" asked the Weasley twins smirking, seeming to finally be awake.

"Not really." Harry answered glancing sadly at Aunt Petunia and Dudley.

**True, Dudley was now so scared of Harry he wouldn't stay in the same room, which Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't shut Harry in his cupboard, **

Sirius growled.

**Force him to do anything or shout at him – in fact, they didn't speak to him at all.**

"That's got to be depressing after a while," said Tonks, while her hair changed from pink to blonde when she yawned.

**Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while.**

A few tired chuckles reverberated in the room.

**Harry kept to his room, with his new owl for company. He had decided to call her Hedwig, a name he had found in **_**A History of Magic.**_

**His school books were very interesting.**

"Oh the horror, reading the books before the first year begins. Oh the Huge Manatee." Shouted Sirius.

Harry blushed when he noticed most of the adults and Hermione were giving him an approving look.

Sirius was still looking horrified at the prospect of finding school textbooks interesting.

**He lay on his bed reading late into the night,**

**Hedwig swooping in and out of the place as she pleased. It was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn't come in to vacuum anymore, because Hedwig kept bringing back dead mice.**

Aunt Petunia gave a look of disgust at that.

"I really like your owl, Harry," said Charlie kindly and smiled.

**Every night before he went to sleep, Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first.**

"As I am sure many other Hogwarts students have done also Mr. Potter." replied Albus whose eyes twinkled upon seeing so many affirming nods.

**On the last day of August he thought he'd better speak to his aunt and uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day.**

"You waited until the day before?" asked Hermione in disbelief.

Harry grinned sheepishly.

**So he went down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and Dudley screamed and ran from the room.**

This caused Fred and George to snicker.

"**Er – Uncle Vernon?"**

**Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.**

"**Er – I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to – to go to Hogwarts."**

**Uncle Vernon grunted again.**

"**Would it be alright if you gave me a lift?"**

**Grunt. Harry supposed that meant yes.**

"**Thank you."**

Several people snorted.

"So, you speak troll, Harry?" asked Fred.

"Wouldn't be surprised if his uncle was," said George.

**He was supposed to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.**

**A few people groaned.**

**"He should keep his trap shut," muttered Sirius.**

**"Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"**

"No flying carpets were banned by the International Confederation of Wizards in 1853." Percy replied pompously receiving glares from his brothers and sister.

**"There were several witches and wizards bewitching Muggle artifacts such as carpets and they eventually got banned." explained Mr. Weasley.**

**"That was a disaster," muttered Kingsley.**

**Harry didn't say anything.**

**"Where is this school, anyway?"**

"Somewhere in Scotland" replied Hermione. "I read it in _Hogwarts: A History,_"

"**I don't know," said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled the ticket Hargird had given him out of his pocket.**

"Oh, no," muttered Hermione loudly. "He didn't tell you."

"**I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," he read.**

**His aunt and uncle stared.**

"Oh," said Minerva, now understanding. "Hagrid didn't tell Harry _how_ to get on the platform."

Many eyes widened.

"I knew o forgo' ta tell ya somthin Harry," Hagrid replied embarrassed.

"It's okay Hagrid it all worked out alright." Harry reassured his large friend.

"Ah, so _that's_ where we come in," said the twins before winking at Harry.

"**Platform what?"**

"**Nine and three-quarters."**

"**Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."**

"Yes, there is," chorused the twins.

"**It's on my ticket."**

"**Barking," said Uncle Vernon.**

Sirius glowered at the book, peeved that there were so many dog-related references. Harry laughed.

"**Howling mad, the lot of them."**

"Oi!" yelled Sirius and Remus who felt insulted.

**You'll see. You just wait. Alright, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother."**

Many eye rolls went through the room.

"**Why are you going to London?" Harry asked, trying to keep things friendly.**

Hermione snorted.

"**Taking Dudley to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings."**

" Had to pay extra to keep the doctor quiet about that tail too." Complained Aunt Petunia to herself whilst Dudley turned red from the memory.

**Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn't want to walk into the station in his wizard's robes – he'd change on the train.**

"Good thinking." growled Mad-Eye.

Kingsley and Moody exchanged looks. There have been too many irresponsible wizards walking in non-Muggle clothes and memory charms being put on them to forget the mysterious people in cloaks lately.

**He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure he had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the rooms waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Harry, **

Many people snorted.

**and they had set off.**

**They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him.**

"Really?" asked Tonks surprised.

Many people were giving the book suspicious looks concerning the sudden kindness of Harry's uncle.

"Constant vigilance, constant vigilance," muttered Mad-Eye.

**Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face. **

"Uh, oh," Tonks muttered.

"**Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine — platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"**

"Stupid Muggle" muttered Regulus.

**He was quite right, of course.**

**There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.**

"**Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing.**

" Sorry Harry I realize now that it really wasn't very funny." Replied Petunia.

" Especially since you know how to get on the platform." Countered Lily.

**Harry's mouth went rather dry. What on earth was he going to do? He was starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig.**

**He'd have to ask someone.** **He stopped a passing guard, but didn't dare mention platform nine and three-quarters.**

**The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Harry couldn't even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though Harry was being stupid on purpose.**

**Getting desperate, Harry asked for the train that left at eleven o'clock, but the guard said there wasn't one.**

**In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters. Harry was now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could hardly lift, a pocket full of wizard money, and a large owl.**

**Hagrid must have forgotten to tell him something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. He wondered if he should get out his wand and start tapping the ticket inspector's stand between platforms nine and ten.**

**At that moment a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

"— **packed with Muggles, of course —"**

A few people sighed with relief and Fred and George exchanged looks.

**Harry swung round.**

**The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair.**

The said Weasley kids cheered. George had to shove Percy so he would cheer half-heartily with them.

**Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry's in front of him, and they had an **_**owl**_**.**

**Heart hammering, Harry pushed his cart after them. They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.**

**"Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother.**

"**Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mum, can't I go…"**

Ginny started to blush.

Even her blush is beautiful thought Harry.

**"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."**

**What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it — but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.**

"Bad luck, mate," said Charlie grinning.

"**Fred, you next," the plump woman said.**

"**I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you **_**tell **_**I'm George?"**

**"Sorry, George, dear."**

**"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy,**

Everyone laughed and the twins exchanged grins.

"We used to pull that same trick." Laughed Gideon

"Now that I think about it," said Harry thoughtfully. "You were actually George."

The twin's mouths popped open, bewildered, that someone had figured it out.

Everyone else was also shocked since most of the time they couldn't figure it out.

**Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was almost there - and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.**

**There was nothing else for it. **

**"Excuse me," Harry said to the plump woman. **

**"Hello, dear," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too." **

**She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.**

Many people snorted at the description and Fred and George were grinning.

Harry saw Ron's lips twitch.

**Yes," said Harry. "The thing is — the thing is, I don't know how to —"**

"**How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and Harry nodded.**

"**Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."**

"Thank you for showing him how to get on the platform Mrs. Weasley. ? said Lily

" No problem Lily dear." Replied Mrs. Weasley. " and please call me Molly.

"**Er — okay," said Harry. He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.**

Harry and Ron couldn't help but exchange fleeting smiles when they remembered their second year.

**He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to platforms nine and ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash right into that barrier and then he'd be in trouble — leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run — the barrier was coming nearer and nearer — he wouldn't be able to stop — the cart was out of control — he was a foot away — he closed his eyes ready for the crash —**

"And SMASH!" yelled Lily. Many of the adults were looking shocked. Mrs. Weasley squeaked in horror.

Harry was laughing uncontrollably James and Sirius joined in.

"She's just joking," said Harry finally.

" That's my girl." Stated James beaming at Lily.

**It didn't come…**.**he kept on running… he opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said **_**Hogwarts' Express, eleven o'clock**_**. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words **_**Platform Nine and Three-Quarters **_**on it.**

**He had done it.**

"It should have been us taking Harry to the train to Hogwarts." Lily replied sadly wiping a stray tear from her eye.

**Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.**

**The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat.**

**He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again."**

"**Oh, **_**Neville**_**," he heard the old woman sigh.**

Neville cast an embarrassed look towards Harry who just smiled at him.

" What? Why would my mum be taking you to the platform and not us." Asked Frank.

"You are in the long-term care ward at St. Mungo's. replied Neville sadly who was promptly engulfed in a hug by his parents.

**A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.**

"Lee!" cheered the twins.

"**Give us a look, Lee, go on."**

**The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.**

Ron shivered and Fred and George exchanged evil grins.

**Harry pressed on through the crowd until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door. He tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot.**

**"Want a hand?" It was one of the red-haired twins he'd followed through the barrier.**

"**Yes, please," Harry panted.**

"**Oi, Fred! C'mere and help!"**

**With the twins' help, Harry's trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.**

"You actually helped a complete stranger?" asked Bill amazed. "_Without_ pranking them?"

The twins were exchanging sheepish looks and the Weasley's eyed the twins bewildered.

"**Thanks," said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.**

"**What's that?" said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry's lightning scar.**

Harry groaned making Snape raise an eyebrow. Mrs. Weasley was looking at the twins in suspicion.

"**Blimey," said the other twin. "Are you —?"**

"**He is," said the first twin. "Aren't you?" he added to Harry.**

"**What?" said Harry.**

"_**Harry Potter**_**." chorused the twins.**

"**Oh, him," **

Several people laughed and snorted at Harry's answer.

**said Harry. **"**I mean, yes, I am."**

**The two boys gawked at him, and Harry felt himself turning red. **

**Then, to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train's open door.**

"**Fred? George? Are you there?"**

"**Coming, Mum."**

**With a last look at Harry, the twins hopped off the train.**

**Harry sat down next to the window where, half hidden, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying.**

"Now, Harry," said the twins. "Eves dropping, are we?"

Harry reddened and Ginny's eyes were going wide when she started to remember how awkward she used to be around him.

**Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief. **"**Ron, you've got something on your nose." The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose.**

Several people chuckled and Ron started to blush.

Mrs. Weasley looked sheepish at her youngest son.

_**Mum**_**— geroff!" He wriggled free.**

"**Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" said one of the twins.**

More people chuckled.

"**Shut up," said Ron.**

"**Where's Percy?" said their mother.**

"**He's coming now."**

**The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a red and gold badge on his chest with the letter **_**P **_**on it.**

"**Can't stay long, Mother," he said. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves —"**

"**Oh, are you a **_**prefect**_**, Percy?" said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."**

"**Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once-"**

"**Or twice —"**

"**A minute —"**

"**All summer —"**

More laughter broke out at the twin's antics and Percy was glowering at the floor.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were also looking down, but with sad expressions on their faces.

You know what James I think we should induct Fred and George into the …" replied Sirius but he never got to finish his sentence because Harry kicked his keg and looked pointedly at Fred and George. It was then that he realized that Harry didn't want them to know about the Marauders for some reason.

"Prank" Harry mouthed to him to which he answered with a nod and a smirk.

"**Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.**

"**How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" said one of the twins.**

"**Because he's a **_**prefect**_**," said their mother fondly.**

**"All right, dear, well, have a good term — send me an owl when you get there."**

**She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins. **"**Now, you two — this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've — you've blown up a toilet or —"**

Sirius, James and Remus groaned.

"Never give them ideas," said Remus grinning. All professors in the room silently agreed.

"**Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."**

"**Great idea though, thanks, Mum."**

Some people chuckled.

"**It's **_**not funny**_**. And look after Ron."**

"**Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."**

"**Shut up," said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.**

**"Do you have to keep mentioning it?" said Ron, half smiling.**

"**Hey, Mum, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?"**

**Harry leaned back quickly so they couldn't see him looking.**

M Harry just smiled back. ore people snorted.

"**You know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station? Know who he is?"**

"**Who?"**

"_**Harry Potter**_**!"**

**Harry heard the little girl's voice. **"**Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh please…"**

People laughed for Ginny's sake and she started to blush the Weasley red before giving them daggers.

Harry only smiled at her, which didn't stop Ginny from blushing.

"**You've already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn't something you goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Fred? How do you know?"**

"**Asked him. Saw his scar. It's really there — like lightning."**

"apart from the circumstances you got it from," started Fred.

"It really does look cool," finished George.

"**Poor **_**dear **_**— no wonder he was alone, I wondered. He was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform."**

"**Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?"**

**Their mother suddenly became very stern.**

So did the Mrs. Weasley in the present time.

"I swear, if you two asked him…" Mrs. Weasley trailed off dangerously.

Harry and Ron exchanged looks.

"**All right, keep your hair on." **

**A whistle sounded. **"**Hurry up!" their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.**

Ginny started blushing again.

"**Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls."**

"**We'll send you a Hogwarts' toilet seat."**

"_**George!**_**"**

Everyone laughed.

"I never did get that," pouted Ginny.

"I did," said Harry grinning.

"Until Madam Pomfrey confiscated it," pouted the Fred.

"Fred, George!" said Mrs. Weasley disapproving.

"**Only joking, Mum."**

**The train began to move. Harry saw the boys' mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.**

**Harry watched the girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Harry felt a great leap of excitement. He didn't know what he was going to — but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.**

**The door of the compartment slid open and the youngest red headed boy came in.**

"**Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. "Everywhere else is full."**

Several people rolled their eyes and Ron blushed.

**Harry shook his head and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn't looked. Harry saw he still had a black mark on his nose.**

"Seriously, mate?" asked Ron before groaning.

"**Right," mumbled Ron.**

**Harry," said the other twin, "did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then."**

"**Bye," said Harry and Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.**

"**Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.**

"Smooth, Ron," said Bill before rolling his eyes.

**Harry nodded.**

"**Oh — well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes," said Ron. "And have you really got — you know…"**

**He pointed at Harry's forehead.**

**Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar. Ron stared. **

"**So that's where You-Know-Who —?"**

"**Yes," said Harry, "but I can't remember it."**

"**Nothing?" said Ron eagerly.**

"RON!" scowled Mrs. Weasley.

" What you told Fred and George not to ask ,not me." Ron replied at the disapproving looks from his mother.

"**Well — I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else."**

"**Wow," said Ron. He sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.**

"**Are all your family wizards?" asked Harry, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him.**

"Really?" asked Ron shocked.

" Besides Hagrid I've never met a wizard, Ron." replied Harry simply.

"**Err — Yes, I think so," said Ron. "I think Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."**

"**So you must know loads of magic already." The Weasley's were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.**

The Weasley's and Potters shook their heads with disgust.

"**I heard you went to live with Muggles," said Ron. "What are they like?"**

"**Horrible — well, not all of them.** **My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. Wish I'd had three wizard brothers."**

"**Five," said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy.**

All the Weasley's, including Percy, looked at Ron confused. Ron shifted in his seat, looking down at the floor.

"**I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left — Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch.** **Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first.**

All the Weasley's looked appalled at Ron that he thought this much of their lack of money and his confidence.

**You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."**

"Molly, when you give someone a wand that wasn't made especially for them, the wand might not work as well as it could for the witch or wizard." said Dumbledore, speaking up for the first time since breakfast.

Molly looked ashamed and apologetically at Ron.

" Well I did eventually get my own wand and id works great." said Ron.

**Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.** "**His name's Stabbers **

Sirius, Remus and the trio all growled.

**and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff — I mean, I got Scabbers instead." Ron's ears went pink. He seemed to think he'd said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.**

**Harry didn't think there was anything wrong with not being able to afford an owl. After all, he'd never had any money in his life until a month ago, and he told Ron so, all about having to wear Dudley's old clothes and never getting proper birthday presents. This seemed to cheer Ron up.**

From now on you'll have a proper birthday Harry." Raeasured James.

"… **and until Hagrid told "me, I didn't know anything about being a wizard or about my parents or Voldemort —" Ron gasped.**

Sirius, Remus, and Harry rolled their eyes at the gasps and squeaks from the name being said.

"**What?" said Harry.**

"_**You said You-Know-Who's name!**_**" said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you, of all people —"**

"Why? 'Cause my parents were murdered by him?" asked Harry angrily. He had no idea where the anger had come from and looked away from all the shocked faces staring at him.

Dumbledore's was staring at Harry sadly.

"**I'm not trying to be **_**brave **_**or anything, saying the name," said Harry, "I just never knew you shouldn't.** **See what I mean? I've got loads to learn… I bet," he added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying him a lot lately, "I bet I'm the worst in the class."**

"**I'm not trying to be **_**brave **_**or anything, saying the name," said Harry, "I just never knew you shouldn't.** **See what I mean? I've got loads to learn… I bet," he added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying him a lot lately, "I bet I'm the worst in the class."**

I'm guessing you hold it back so it doesn't give you more attention." said Hermione sagely. Harry blushed as everyone gave Hermione bewildered looks before turning to Harry.

"Harry, is this true?" asked Elizabeth curiously.

"Er – of course not," said Harry quickly.

"You _really_ are a horrible liar, Harry," said Hermione, rolling her eyes.

"**You won't be. There's loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough."**

"Hermione," chorused just about everyone making said bushy-haired girl blush furiously.

**While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.**

**Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"**

**Harry, who hadn't had any breakfast, leapt to his feet, but Ron's ears went pink again and he muttered that he'd brought sandwiches. Harry went out into the corridor. He had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that he had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry**— **but the woman didn't have Mars Bars.**

" Mmmmm Mars Bars." Groaned Remus looking glassy eyed before Sirius pushed him.

"Mars Bars?" asked Arthur

"It's a chocolate Muggle sweet," said Hermione.

**What she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life.**

"They should put Muggle sweets on the cart so Muggle-borns are more comfortable and wizards can try something new." offered Ginny.

"That's a very good idea, Miss Weasley I'll have to take that up with Madam Perkins." said Dumbledore making Ginny blush at the compliment and the proud looks she was receiving from her parents. Ginny's blush became a deeper red when she saw Harry giving her an impressed look.

**Ron stared as Harry brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.**

"**Hungry, are you?"**

"**Starving," said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.**

**Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside.**

**He pulled one of them apart and said, "She always forgets I don't like corned beef…"**

"That's my favorite, Mum," said Charlie.

"Oh, I'm sorry dear," said Mrs. Weasley blushing.

"**Swap you for one of these," said Harry, holding up a pasty. "Go on —"**

Several people smiled at Harry's generosity.

"**You don't want this, it's all dry," said Ron. "She hasn't got much time," he added quickly, "you know, with five of us."**

"**Go on, have a pasty," said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry's pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).**

"**What are these?" Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs.**

"**They're not **_**really **_**frogs, are they?" **

Several people, including Hermione chuckled.

"Cockroach clusters are real," said Dumbledore. No one commented.

**He was starting to feel that nothing would surprise him.**

"**No," said Ron. "But see what the card is. I'm missing Agrippa."**

"**What?"**

"**Oh, of course, you wouldn't know — Chocolate Frogs have cards, inside them, you know, to collect — famous witches and wizards. I've got about five hundred, but I haven't got Agrippa or Ptolemy."**

"I have twenty-five Agrippa and about twenty Ptolemy," said Remus making Ron stare at him in awe.

**Harry unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. It showed a man's face. He wore half-moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache.**

**Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.**

Dumbledore smiled, but still looked at his hands that were on his lap and ignored Harry who was trying to see his face.

Harry stared at him with frustration.

"**So **_**this **_**is Dumbledore!" said Harry.**

"**Don't tell me you'd never heard of Dumbledore!" said Ron. "Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa — thanks —"**

**Harry turned over his card and read:**

_**ALBUS DUMBLEDORE**_

_**CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS**_

_**Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel.**_

Groans were chorused around the room, making those who didn't know what had happened look around confused. They got no explanation.

_**Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.**_

**Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared. **"**He's gone!"**

"**Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day," said Ron. **"**He'll be back. No, I've got Morgana again and I've got about six of her… do you want it? You can start collecting."**

**Ron's eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped. "Help yourself," said Harry. "But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos."**

"Really?" said all pure-bloods amazed.

Mr. Weasley looked excited

"**Do they? What, they don't move at all?" Ron sounded amazed. "**_**Weird!"**_

**Harry stared as Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on his card and gave him a small smile. Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn't keep his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin.**

"Merlin and Paracelsus are pretty rare," said Tonks approvingly.

**He finally tore his eyes away from the Druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.**

"**You want to be careful with those," Ron warned Harry. "When they say every flavor, they **_**mean **_**every flavor — you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once."**

George shuddered.

**Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner. **"**Bleaaargh — see? Sprouts."**

Many noses scrunched up in the room.

**They had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans. Harry got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn't touch, which turned out to be pepper.**

"Lucky," muttered several people.

**The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.**

**There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy Harry had passed on platform nine and three-quarters came in. He looked tearful.**

"**Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"**

**When they shook their heads, he wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"**

"**He'll turn up," said Harry.**

"That was nice of you Harry." Alice said smiling.

"**Yes," said the boy miserably. "Well, if you see him…" He left.**

"**Don't know why he's so bothered," said Ron. "If I'd brought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk." The rat was still snoozing on Ron's lap.**

Sirius growled under his breath.

**He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look…"**

**He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end. **"**Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway —"**

"That's quite dangerous," said Remus, making Mrs. Weasley blush.

**He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toad less boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.**

"**Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.**

Hermione groaned "Bloody descriptions." making many laugh.

"It didn't mention beautiful eyes," whispered Ron shyly into Hermione's ear making her blush.

"**We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.**

"**Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.**

"**Er — all right." He cleared his throat. **"**Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."**

Fred and George started laughing. "Can't believe you believed us, Ron,"

**He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.**

"**Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard — I've learned all our course books by heart,** **of course, I just hope it will be enough — I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?" **

Hermione was blushing and everyone laughed.

**She said all this very fast.**

"Just a little," muttered Harry smirking.

Hermione glared at him.

**Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn't learned all the course books by heart either.**

"**I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.**

"**Harry Potter," said Harry.**

"**Are you really?" said Hermione. **"**I know all about you, of course — I got a few extra books, for background reading, and you're in **_**Modern Magical History **_**and **_**The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts **_**and **_**Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century**_**."**

"Of which the accuracy is probably somewhere between Lockhart and Skeeter." Harry said with a smirk which earned him confused stares from most of the room's occupants.

"**Am I?" said Harry, feeling dazed.**

"**Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione. "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad… Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."**

"You've definitely changed, Hermione," barked out Sirius.

"I blame Harry," said Hermione, making said person blush.

**And she left, taking the toad less boy with her.**

"**Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron.**

A few glares were directed at a certain red head.

"Sorry Hermione." Ron whispered timidly.

**He threw his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell — George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."**

"**What house are your brothers in?" asked Harry.**

"**Gryffindor," said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. "Mum and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw **_**would **_**be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."**

"**That's the house Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?"**

"**Yeah," said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.**

"**You know, I think the ends of Scabbers' whiskers are a bit lighter," said Harry, trying to take Ron's mind off houses.**

More people smiled at Harry's kindness.

**"So what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left, anyway?" Harry was wondering what a wizard did once he'd finished school.**

"**Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, **

Charlie smiled.

**and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts,"**

"I'm a curse breaker," said Bill at once. "It's a very interesting job."

**said Ron. **"**Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the **_**Daily Prophet**_**, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles — someone tried to rob a high security vault."**

**Harry stared. **"**Really? What happened to them?"**

"**Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."**

'Sounds likely." Muttered James.

**Harry turned this news over in his mind. He was starting to get a prickle of fear every time You-Know-Who was mentioned. He supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying "Voldemort"**

A few people looked bewildered, but Dumbledore had given Harry an approving look before looking at the floor.

**without worrying.**

"**What's your Quidditch team?" Ron asked.**

"**Er — I don't know any." Harry confessed.**

All Quidditch fans were paling at the thought.

"**What!" Ron looked dumbfounded. "Oh, you wait, it's the best game in the world —" And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he'd been to with his brothers and the broomstick he'd like to get if he had the money. He was just taking Harry through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn't Neville the toad less boy, or Hermione Granger this time.**

**Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: it was the pale boy from Madam Malkin's robe shop.**

**He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he'd shown back in Diagon Alley.**

"**Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"**

"**Yes," said Harry. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.**

" more like a couple of trolls." Said Ron.

"**Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."**

"Bond, James Bond," said Tonks before she burst out laughing.

"Please don't get James started on Goldfinger." Sirius whined pleadingly.

"A martini. Shaken, not stirred." Quoted James.

"After he saw that he made me buy him an Aston Martin." Said William

Most of the room's occupants looked confused.

**Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy looked at him.**

"**Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."**

" I think the Weasleys are wonderful." Exclaimed Harry.

" any Weasley in particular?" inquired Fred mischievously.

Harry just glance at Ginny blushing furiously.

**He turned back to Harry. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."**

**He held out his hand to shake Harry's, but Harry didn't take it.**

"**I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks," he said coolly.**

A few people cheered.

**Draco Malfoy didn't go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks. **"**I'd be careful if I were you, Potter," he said slowly. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasley's and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."**

The cheering stopped at once.

**Both Harry and Ron stood up. **

"**Say that again," Ron said, his face as red as his hair.**

"**Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.**

"**Unless you get out now," said Harry, more bravely than he felt, because Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than him or Ron.**

"**But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some." Goyle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron — Ron leapt forward, but before he'd so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a horrible yell.**

**Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle's knuckle**

**Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbers finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once.**

"Best thing that bloody rat ever did," muttered Sirius

**Perhaps they thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they'd heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger had come in.**

"**What **_**has **_**been going on?" she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.**

"**I think he's been knocked out," Ron said to Harry. **

**He looked closer at Scabbers. "No — I don't believe it — he's gone back to sleep." **

"Must be the Nargles," said Luna dreamily making many jump since she hasn't spoken since breakfast.

**And so he had. **"**You've met Malfoy before?"**

**Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.**

"**I've heard of his family," said Ron darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. **

"Bullshit." Shouted Regulus.

**My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." **

**He turned to Hermione. "Can we help you with something?"**

"**You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"**

"I think I was just trying to be nice, but ended up sounding rather mean," said Hermione.

"**Scabbers has been fighting, not us," said Ron, scowling at her. "Would you mind leaving while we change?"**

"**All right — I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," said Hermione in a sniffy voice "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"**

Ron groaned and several people chuckled.

**Ron glared at her as she left. Harry peered out of the window. It was getting dark. He could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down. He and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Ron's were a bit short for him, you could see his sneakers underneath them.**

**A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."**

**Harry's stomach lurched with nerves and Ron, he saw, looked pale under his freckles. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.**

**The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?"**

Harry couldn't help but smile.

**Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.**

"**C'mon, follow me — any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"**

**Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.**

"**Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."**

**There was a loud "Oooooh!"**

"Every year is the same reaction," said Dumbledore whose eyes were twinkling.

**The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.**

**No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione.**

"**Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then — FORWARD!"**

**And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.**

"**Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; **

Remus and Sirius snorted loudly.

Harry looked at them questioning before James answered.

"It was me, Remus, Sirius, and Lily sharing a boat. I wasn't paying attention to instructions and hit some branches and ivy and fell out. This made the whole boat turn over and everyone got soaked." said James laughing.

"Lily wasn't very pleased," said Remus, chuckling also. "And that's the understatement of the century."

Harry allowed himself a small smile at hearing more of his parents at Hogwarts, which Sirius saw. He realized suddenly that Harry must not hear too much and vowed to mention more of Lily and James.

**they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.**

"**Oi, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.**

"**Trevor!" cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.**

**They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door. **"**Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"**

**Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.**

"That's the end of the chapter," said Lily.

"Are you okay." asked Harry when he noticed that Ginny seemed withdrawn.

"I'm embarrassed." Ginny answered warily.

"Why" Harry asked slightly confused

"Because I acted like a silly little girl back then and I know that there is no way you could ever really like me." Said Ginny sadly.

"But I do like you." Harry said earnestly. "And I think you are beaut-"

Harry never got to finish his sentence because right then Ginny suddenly grabbed Harry around the neck and yanked him forward crashing his lips with hers.

Unnoticed by them as soon as their lips made contact they were surrounded by a flash of bright light followed by a piercing scream.

_HP&TROP_

**Authors Note:**

Thank you to Lilykees for the suggestion on Ginny suddenly kissing Harry.


End file.
